Chapter 1: typical morning blues
Chapter Text
CASSANDRA ELISE MONTCLAIR hadn’t had a morning to herself in a long, long time, which said a lot considering she lived alone.
Considering her position, she really should have had more time on her hands. She was twenty nine, single, and belonged to one of the wealthiest families in the country. Even if her job at the family corporation was quite demanding at times, she should have had much more free time than she did, or at least a moment to breathe every once in a while. The idea of that, however, always came to a screeching halt simply because of one person.
That morning, of course, had been no different than all of the morning that had come before it. She had just gotten ready for the day and had poured herself a fresh cup of coffee when she got the call from Alfred. Of course, she had been expecting it for hours already—someone had assassinated the mayor in his own home last night, and there was seemingly no suspect.
She sighed, taking another sip of her coffee before answering the phone. “Hey. Is he okay?”
“Physically, yes. He’s fine. Emotionally? Your guess is as good as mine.”
She sighed, brushing her thumb over the rim of her cup. “Is he still downstairs?”
“Afraid so. I’ve made two attempts to get him to come up already myself, but he refuses. Says he doesn’t have time to meet with the accountants that are coming this morning despite their generous offer to come here.”
She groaned, pressing her fingers to her temple. “Is this that meeting?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Dammit,” she mumbled under her breath, taking another sip of her coffee before she spoke again. “You want me to come over?”
“I hate to ask—”
“You’re not,” she interrupted gently. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”
After she hung up, she chugged her cup of coffee, dropped her mug in the sink, and tossed on her blazer and heels without another thought before grabbing her keys. Whenever she got calls like that, she tried not to question too much, and she certainly never hesitated, especially when she thought he might be in danger: this was simply a normal part of her routine.
The drive to Wayne Tower never seemed to take long. After so many years of living in Gotham City, she had somehow found every single shortcut there. Realistically, her penthouse wasn’t too far from his own place, but considering how pressed for time she always seemed to be, she didn’t mind driving a few miles over the speed limit.
Whenever she finally walked through the elevator door to the penthouse at the top of Wayne Tower, her heels click-clacking on the tile floor, she found Alfred at the great room table, hunched over a sheet of paper and deep in thought.
“Morning,” she said as she stepped into the room, voice warm.
Alfred only looked at her for a moment, giving a soft hum. “You look especially chipper.”
“Yeah, I tried to have a slow morning. It lasted approximately fourteen minutes before you called.”
He didn’t look up. “You still beat my record for the year. Mine’s seven.”
She laughed gently as she set her bag on one of the chairs at the table. “How bad is it this time?”
“He was out all night last night. He didn’t get back until about an hour ago, so he hasn’t slept. Probably hasn’t eaten. I’d be worried if it weren’t such a… predictable pattern.”
She tilted her head. “Is it even worth me trying?”
Alfred nodded without looking up from his work, still studying the paper in front of him. “You’re the only one he listens to, I’m afraid.”
No point in arguing with that. Without another moment’s hesitation, she went down the the abandoned Terminus station below Wayne Tower that Alfred so lovingly referred to as his cave.
She tapped her foot lightly as the elevator descended, the sound hollow compared to the hum of the elevator. She had made this trip so many times in the last two years that it seemed far from luxurious or exciting.
Since Cassie had found out about his nightly activities, she had been called in the middle of the night and early morning more times than she could remember to get over to Wayne Tower. She never hesitated, not even once whenever she saw Alfred’s contact pop up on her phone, partially because she couldn’t trust her friend to take care of himself. That didn’t include the times that he had come directly to her in the middle of the night, accidentally waking her up. She would never forget walking into her kitchen at three in the morning to see him trying to fix his wounds in her kitchen but epically failing—in his defense, he really had been hurt horribly every time that happened and her place had been closer than his. She was used to dealing with his antics, no matter what time of the day it was.
Whenever the doors to the elevator opened, she stepped out and walked toward the large workspace in the room, the song “Something in the Way” echoing through the cavern. The clicks of her heels echoed against the ceiling, the noise sending bats from their burrow in the corner of the abandoned station. Despite her presence being known, the man standing at the work table didn’t turn to face her.
As she stopped in place, not but ten or so feet away from him, she crossed her arms over her chest. “You have guests that’ll be here in less than an hour.”
He grunted dismissively, still staring at the computer screen in front of him. Typical.
“Which means you needed to get in the shower about twenty minutes ago.”
He didn’t turn to face her as he spoke, still fixated on the monitor screen in front of him. “I’m aware.”
“Come on.” She sighed as she moved in front of him, now standing next to one of his monitors. When he didn’t look at her, she turned down his stereo. “Look at me, Bruce.”
Bruce Wayne finally met her eyes, them partially glazed over from lack of sleep, lids dark from the camo paint he put on his face every night.
“What?” he mumbled.
She sighed softly, frowning ever so slightly as she rubbed her thumb across his brow to wipe away a streak of smudged black paint. “They’re gonna think you’re diseased if they see you like this.”
He caught her wrist before she could move away, gentle as he held it despite the quick movement. His fingers were cold against her pulse point. “So?”
“So,” she said softly, “I need you to wipe your face, comb your hair, and maybe even shower if you’re feeling wild just so your accountants don’t think you’re certifiable. I promise not to even make you put on a tie.”
He sighed exasperatedly. “I already told Alfred I haven’t got the time—”
“Then make it,” she said firmly. “Look, these people are taking time out of their day to come here just so they can speak with you. It’s important stuff, Bruce. You can’t just keep pushing it off.”
“Why can’t Alfred just deal with this?”
“It’s not his company,” she reasoned. When he groaned in annoyance, she gave him a pointed look. “I’m serious, if you don’t deal with this today, shit’s gonna hit the fan, and you’ll have much more to go to than a stupid meeting with some corporate accountants, and that’ll make this—” she motioned to the monitors on the workbench— “just a little bit harder to manage for a while.”
Bruce stared at her for a second longer, then released her wrist and sighed, admitting defeat.
Her expression lightened, her brow arched in victory. “Good. Be quick with it. I have other things to tend to today besides you.”
Bruce took a step back from the table, rubbing at his face—which only smeared the paint around his eyes further—and sighed. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?”
“This,” he muttered. “Deal with me.”
She tilted her head slightly, her voice softening. “Bruce, if I didn’t want to be here, trust me. I wouldn’t be.”
He blinked at her and swallowed visibly, almost like what she said took him offguard.
“Besides,” she added, voice lighter, “you don’t listen to Alfred.”
He stood up straighter with the slow, aching movements of someone who hadn’t slept or eaten or taken care of themselves in a while. As he did, she straightened the collar of his hoodie.
“It’s not like I’m asking you to wear a tux. Just brush your hair and maybe remember to blink a couple times? For their sake and mine?”
A reluctant half-smile touched his lips for only a second, but that was enough for her to know she had truly won.
Bruce followed her toward the elevator without protest. Even if he was stubborn to a fault, for some reason, he knew it best to not argue with her when she asked—like always, he joined her back to the penthouse.
Cassie waited on Bruce to see if he actually followed her requests.
While she waited, she sat with Alfred and opened her laptop to chip away at the mounting avalanche of emails she already had this morning. Typically, her inbox consisted mostly of messages relating to public relations, logistics, and complained from irritated investors that Graham hadn’t gotten around to calming down yet. She skimmed for anything on fire and replied quickly, smoothing things over with her usual tactfulness that her brother lacked.
After seven years of working for Montclair Industries, Cassie wasn’t sure if she hated her position in her family’s pharmaceutical empire or if it had just worn her down. While she felt lucky in some ways that she got to run the Montclair Foundation, the Montclairs were old money, old power, old Gotham. While she wasn’t the CEO—that was her brother, Graham—she dealt with donors, government officials, advisors, and reporters alike.
Dealing with so many people, especially reporters, wasn’t something she thought she was perfect at, even if she had been in the public eye for a long time. Realistically, she had been in the media her entire life, but the following she had only increased since she was a teenager. Cassie had been considered the princess of Gotham since she was a young girl. While she didn’t love the nickname, there was nothing she could do to change it now. Instead, she had to power through the press, the galas, the inability to ever have a chance at a normal life.
Cassie’s gaze flicked toward the staircase when she heard Bruce’s footsteps, only to find he was still putting a shirt on as he came down. She quickly looked back at her computer, pretending to scroll through something important, though she still watched him out of the corner of her eye.
As he tugged a black t-shirt over his head, shoulders stiff, the hem dragged for a moment against the cut along his right arm. The skin around it was red, raw, the kind of wound that should have been cleaned hours ago. She felt her stomach twist.
When he stood next to the table, finally clear in her view, she caught sight of his damp hair and the fading bruise near his eye that she hadn’t seen before because of the camo paint. The light from the window hit it mercilessly, catching the shadows under his eyes, the exhaustion carved deep into his face. He squinted in response, almost like he wasn’t used to such brightness anymore. He looked less like a billionaire and more like someone barely held together by stubbornness alone.
A less grim thought came to mind, almost making Cassie laugh out loud. With the way he looked currently, he appeared more hungover than exhausted from the night he had just had. She wondered if the accountants would think anything of his appearance other than the possibility of him drowning his sorrows in a bottle of Scotch the night before. Bruce reaching for the sunglasses on the table didn’t help that image.
“There’s some fresh berries there,” Alfred said mildly without turning to Bruce, still focused on the paper in front of him.
Cassie glanced at the bowl on the cart beside him, then back at Bruce. “You’re still bleeding.”
He didn’t look down at the slice on his arm, obviously unbothered by it. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” she said, softer now. “I mean, did you even clean that?”
He kept his eyes on the paper Alfred was working on, obviously intrigued by it. “I’ve had worse.”
She stared at him, heart in her throat. “Doesn’t mean you should just let it get infected. I mean, I can—”
“It’s fine, Cass,” he said quietly, but sharp enough to cut off any more questions about it. He finally reached for the bowl of berries on the cart next to the table, holding it in his hand as he looked over Alfred’s shoulder. “What’re you doing?”
“Just… reminiscing about my days in the circus.” Alfred inhaled sharply as Bruce moved closer to look at the paper, squinting partially from the sunlight still. “This is actually quite elusive.”
“Where’d you get those O’s?” Bruce asked, pointing to the cipher Alfred had started solving on the paper.
Cassie closed the lid of her laptop, her curiosity piqued. She leaned forward to glance at the paper. She found that Alfred had started cracking a cipher of some kind, one that she could only assume came from the crime scene at the mayor’s mansion last night. “What’s that?”
“A cipher,” Bruce said, not elaborating any further.
“One addressed to the Batman specifically,” Alfred added, almost instigative.
Bruce’s head jerked in his direction, eyes harsh. “Alfred.”
Cassie ignored him, a hint of tease in her expression. “Ooh, sounds like you have a secret admirer. Kinda cute. There a key?”
“‘He lies still,’ but it’s only a partial key,” Alfred explained. “It only gives us H, E, L, I, S, and T, so I’m looking for any double symbols to start. Trying letters, see where it leads.”
Bruce finally gave up on squinting to see and put on the sunglasses Alfred had put on the table. He had always hated sunlight being in his eyes, even as a kid. Now, though, considering he had blackout curtains in nearly every room and rarely went outside during the day, his eyes were much more sensitive to sunlight. “That’s interesting.”
Cassie had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. He looked like he was nursing a hangover from hell.
“Mind if I take a look?” she finally asked, peering at the piece of paper over Alfred’s shoulder.
Whenever he slid the paper to where she could also see it, her eyes quickly scanned over the cipher. Most of it didn’t make any sense, partially because some symbols would only show up in certain rows. For whatever reason, this cipher wasn’t jumbled like a traditional cipher would be. She almost chuckled at herself—as if she decoded ciphers on the daily.
“Did you notice some of the symbols are only in certain rows?”
“What?” Bruce asked, leaning in and suddenly more attentive.
“The symbols,” she said, tracing some of the characters that were already marked. “Some of them only appear in certain rows. It’s weird. Maybe it’s a pattern of some kind.”
Before either of them could reply to her, Dory walked into the room. “Mr. Pennyworth?”
All three of them turned to look at the older woman, but Alfred had been the one to answer her, almost like it was his house. “Yes, Dory?”
“The accountants are here.”
Alfred folded the paper and slid it beneath the newspaper on the table. “See them in, please, Dory.”
“Want me to go?” Cassie asked, looking at Bruce as he popped a berry into his mouth, then to Alfred. “I can dip before she brings them up if you think it’d be a problem.”
“I think it’s quite all right if you stayed,” Alfred said. “If anyone has a problem, surely we can settle that ourselves at a later date.”
“You sure? I know last time—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bruce said dismissively, but not because he didn’t care about her concerns. “Stay.”
“Okay, your call,” Cassie said as she moved back to her seat.
Bruce took the small bowl of berries with him as he sat in the chair next to hers, still not taking his sunglasses off as he did so. She smoothed her blazer and took a slow breath just as the accountants filed in—two men in identical gray suits, leather folders pressed to their chests like shields. The air in the room immediately stiffened.
She and Alfred stood to greet them, exchanging the usual pleasantries, but Bruce didn’t move. He didn’t so much as glance up at them. Cassie had to contain her disappointment. Every Wayne Enterprises employee, no matter their position in the company, always came in expecting the same thing: a handshake, a smile, the illusion that their boss was actually paying attention to them. They were always disappointed.
“Mr. Wayne,” the lead accountant began, clearing his throat. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with us today. We’ve been trying to schedule this meeting for a month or so now, so—”
“Make this quick,” Bruce said flatly.
The man’s mouth snapped shut. He stumbled for a second, rearranging the papers in front of him. “Right, of course. I’ll, uh, get straight to it. I’m afraid we’re at a, uh… a critical point here.”
He sat slouched in his chair, sunglasses still on, his jaw clenched as he stared at the newspaper that hid the cipher underneath it. His expression could have been carved from stone. He looked detached, blank, but in a way that made it painfully obvious that he hated this. He hated every word, every chart, every number on the page and they hadn’t even properly started yet. He had no desire to take part in anything that had to do with Wayne Enterprises.
The accountant cleared his throat again. “Losses from the failed partnerships overseas have compounded to seventeen-point-four million last quarter alone. That’s excluding the halted logistics projects and the late tax adjustments. If we don’t restructure before next cycle, we’ll be—”
“One could say you’re rapidly losing funding, then?” Alfred butt in, almost as if he was trying to make it clear to Bruce as to how serious this really was.
The accountant hesitated, glancing at Alfred for help. He gave him a small, diplomatic nod to continue. “Y–Yes, sir. There are also concerns regarding audit compliance and, um, depreciation schedules…”
As the accountant rambled on, Bruce’s gaze stayed locked on the newspaper, expression unreadable behind his sunglasses. He didn’t move, didn’t react. The way he sat—shoulders drawn tight, fingers curling against the armrest—made it look like he was holding himself there by force. Cassie could practically feel his thoughts pacing somewhere else entirely, far from this room and to the one down below. Completely proving her point, he picked up the newspaper, presumably looking at the cipher within it.
The second accountant jumped in, voice thin. “If we could just get your signature here, Mr. Wayne. It’s the authorization for reallocating the emergency reserve.”
He didn’t reach for the pen, only staring at the newspaper in his hands. He hadn’t heard a word.
“Bruce,” Cassie murmured gently, trying to get his attention.
His eyes flicked toward her impulsively, almost like she had taken him off guard. Then, realizing the accountants were waiting on him, he put the newspaper down, then reached out and took the document with a quiet, “Sorry.”
He scrawled his name across the page and slid it back across the table, his gaze already drifting past them again.
The accountants exchanged quick, uneasy glances before pressing on.
“For the next part of this meeting,” one began carefully, “we’ve brought some figures for you to review, Mr. Wayne. It may help in determining how to prevent further loss.”
Bruce didn’t move. He stared at the folder for a few seconds, but his expression didn’t change; it was as if the numbers and words meant nothing to him, even if it would help him in the long run.
Cassie waited a minute, almost as if she was giving Bruce the opportunity to actually take it, then leaned forward and took the folder from the man’s hand with a polite smile. “I’ll take that.”
The accountants exhaled in relief. Alfred didn’t so much blink as Cassie opened the file in her hand. Her fingers skimmed across the spreadsheets as she read over familiar numbers.
The presentation dragged on. They outlined expenditures, compliance concerns, audit results. Alfred interjected with occasional questions, revealing that—yet again—he knew the material better than Bruce did. Despite that, Bruce sat in his chair motionless, face turned away from the sunlight pouring into the window, shoulders rigid.
Cassie watched him out of the corner of her eye. He never shifted, never let himself relax. His jaw tensed once, obviously grinding his teeth: she knew this was agony, almost near torture for him. He must have thought there was nothing worse than having to sit still and listen to people talk about financial reports whenever there was a potential serial killer on the loose in Gotham.
Toward the end of their presentation, Cassie’s eyes narrowed at a column in the report she had in her hands. Her finger hovered above the line that piqued her interest.
“Wait a sec,” she murmured. “This entry here. The liability for the overseas R&D project—it’s been classified under deferred instead of accrued.”
The accountants blinked at her. She could feel Bruce and Alfred’s eyes on her, but they didn’t question her.
“That’s gonna throw off the tax filing if it isn’t corrected,” she continued, steady and matter-of-fact. “This reference line links to your summary, and then the filing, which means the SEC system will definitely flag it. You’ll want to adjust that before submission so you don’t get fined.”
The accountants froze. Their pens hovered midair, useless. One coughed. “We, uh… I–I’m sorry, w–we… we didn’t catch that.”
Cassie gave them a polite smile. “It happens. Just reclassify it here, adjust your supporting documentation, and double-check all the references before you submit it. It shouldn’t take you very long to fix.”
The accountants turned their eyes to Bruce, almost like they were concerned that she, a well-known Montclair Industries board member, was even attending a Wayne Enterprises meeting to begin with, never mind actually speaking during it and telling them what to do. Alfred almost laughed at the sight. These accountants had obviously never been in a meeting with Bruce—and therefore Cassie —before.
Bruce didn’t speak at first, didn’t even move a muscle. Then, with painfully visible reluctance, he lifted his chin just enough to tilt his head toward Cassie, then spoke lowly. “Do what she said.”
The accountants’ eyes widened like they were told Cassie’s word was law. They scrambled to scribble notes down, nodding and murmuring agreement.
One of the accountants spoke again, hesitating slightly now as they flipped through their folders. “Mr. Wayne, about consolidating international projects: should we group them under the parent account or keep them separate?”
Bruce didn’t answer right away. He shifted in his chair, eyes flicking toward Cassie.
She didn’t even look up from the folder as she scanned more spreadsheets, turning her head slightly and talking lowly like it was only intended for Bruce to hear. “Separate. It keeps the audits clean and isolates the losses.”
Bruce’s gaze lingered on her for a moment, making her eyes flick to him for just a second. Then, he turned back to the accountants and murmured, “Keep them separate.”
The accountants nodded again, scribbling notes and checking their figures. By the time they reached the final agenda item, Bruce had only spoken three times, and each time, it was to just tell them to do whatever Cassie said. When they handed him another form to sign, he picked up the pen without even glancing at the text.
Before too much longer, the accountants packed their folders, murmured thanks, and were led by Dory back down the elevator and out of the penthouse. Once they were gone, Cassie slid her laptop into her bag and stood from her chair. She looked over at Bruce, finally catching his eyes again now that he had taken the sunglasses off of his face. He looked like he was about to crash.
“See?” she said gently, a lilt of tease threaded through her voice. “Not so bad.”
Bruce gave a faint, imperceptible shrug, then huffed through his nose, the closest thing to a laugh she would probably get out of him.
Cassie’s smile widened a touch. She stood, brushing a strand of hair back from her face. “Okay, I gotta go. Duty calls. Please eat something before you go to bed. And, seriously, Bruce? Go to bed. You look like you’re about to pass out on the table.”
He hesitantly inclined his head once. Barely a nod, but it was enough.
Cassie glanced at Alfred. “Let me know if you two need me to come back tonight. That cipher seems like it’ll be so much fun.”
Alfred gave her a polite smile. “You’ve done more than enough already, Cassie, but your generosity and enthusiasm are always appreciated.”
“All right, then,” she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “Try not to burn the place down before I come back.”
As she walked down the stairs, disappearing to the entrance gallery to wait on the elevator back down to the parking garage, Alfred adjusted his glasses as he looked at Bruce. “Might I say, it’s a shame she isn’t on the board here. I can only assume she would have things running properly by now if given the chance.”
Bruce didn’t answer him before standing up, taking the cipher hidden in the newspaper with him.
“Where are you going?” Alfred asked him, making him stop in his tracks. “To lie down, as Cassie rather wisely suggested, I hope?”
Bruce shook his head slightly. “No. I think she might’ve been right about a potential pattern with this cipher. I just need to test it to be sure.”
Alfred’s brow lifted, faint amusement softening his tone. “Well, I don’t doubt she is. Cassie’s always had a knack for untangling another’s overcomplication.”
Based on the number of business meetings Cassie had sat in on with him in the last two years, Bruce thought that was more than apparent. If she could cut through the red tape of overly confusing business jargon, relatively, this cipher must have seemed like a morning crossword rather than ancient Aramaic.
When Bruce didn’t reply with words, Alfred stood up, taking his cane in his hand as he began to walk in the direction of the elevator. “All right, then. Let’s hope she’s right so you can soften the blow of ignoring her more… compassionate suggestions.”
That earned him the smallest huff that might have been a laugh, low and reluctant, before Bruce followed behind him, carrying the cipher in his hand as a reluctant hope stirred in his chest that Cassie was right once again.
Chapter 2: all i need
Chapter Text
AFTER MEETING WITH the Wayne Enterprises accountants, Cassie ducked out of Wayne Tower and scurried over to her own place of work: Montclair Tower.
She texted the assistant she had but technically didn’t need to let her know she was running late and would be in the building shortly if anyone asked. While she loved Natalie and appreciated everything she did for her, Cassie didn’t use and abuse her the way Graham did his assistants, and therefore struggled to give her things to do without feeling guilty. However, she consistently used Natalie to cover for her when coming in late from Wayne Tower some mornings.
Before going into work, Cassie sped over to her favorite coffee place just down the street from Montclair Tower and got an iced latte. She didn’t need the caffeine—she needed the excuse to explain her lateness. She knew it seemed shitty to walk into the building tardy with a coffee in hand, but she had to brush it aside. Everyone else on the board did it, so why shouldn’t she? As she walked into the building, she scanned her keycard at the front entrance and clutched her latte tighter, her heels echoing as she walked briskly across the lobby’s polished marble floors.
She had worked at Montclair Industries for about seven years now. While she was grateful for the opportunity, her position at the company had always felt more like an obligation than a privilege. She had never had much say in her position, not since her mother’s death fourteen years ago. One car crash and suddenly Cassie and her brother were chess pieces to her father instead of his children.
Cassie’s official position was Chairman of the Montclair Foundation. On paper, most of her duties involved overseeing philanthropic initiatives and managing high-profile charitable projects, but really she spent most of her time acting as Graham’s right-hand man. That part of her job came with many obligations that came without thanks, which was only made worse because she was a part of the family, not just another board member. Even though she wasn’t the CEO, she still was the person who spoke with the press, who hosted the galas and the events, who made sure the investors were satisfied—basically, she did all of the bitch work that Graham didn’t want to. That was how her father had planned it years ago.
Christopher Montclair had always instilled in his children that legacy was more important than identity. That was why Cassie and Graham both had no choice but to dedicate their lives to the family. Neither of them were ever given an opportunity to pursue their other passions and interests; those were simply distractions from a path already paved for them. While she had thought, hoped, dreamed that those sentiments would die with her father, Graham adopted them as his own after their father had died, still living by his old code.
That was why she knew she had to come up with an excuse for her lateness that would appease him. If she didn’t, she risked exposure.
Cassie and Graham were close growing up. They were as close as two siblings with a three and a half year age gap could be, anyway. Their father, unsurprisingly, wasn’t around much, and they were both teenagers when their mother died. While her brother wasn’t her best friend or anything, Graham was someone that she cared about deeply. She never would have told him, especially now, but she did care for him despite him being her stupid older brother. Now, though, their relationship was strained. After their father had had the heart attack and Graham became the sole owner of Montclair Industries, he changed. She didn’t know whether it was the stress of taking on a multi-billion dollar company so young and without warning or how he, for some reason, had actually seemed to care that their father had died, but something changed him permanently. Without warning, Graham became a carbon copy of Christopher Montclair, which was much worse than if he had always been a dick.
In Graham’s defense, there were parts of his management of the company that differed from their father. Graham wasn’t a micromanager; at least, he didn’t initially appear that way. They had an agreement after their respective promotions: Cassie could come and go as she pleased as long as her work got done in a timely manner. Initially, she thought he had only offered such a thing because he thought she was harmless or that she didn’t do much at all for Montclair Industries. She thought the offer was somewhat silly: her whole life she had wanted to be like everyone else. Why wouldn’t she want to go to work like a normal person? Because of that, she realized rather quickly that his agreement was not generous but simply Graham’s way to keep tabs on her life in and out of the building, even if it appeared as freedom.
The elevator ride to the executive suite always felt longer than it actually was. Her foot bounced on the tile floor of the elevator impatiently. She felt more dread today than she normally did, her stomach unsettled in a way that her latte wouldn’t fix. Breathe. Anxiety makes you seem guilty. In any news, she wouldn’t get in trouble for being late, she knew that. She just didn’t want to face Graham and his potential attitude so early in the morning.
She hated that this was all her life was. Before thirty, she had already been reduced to her brother’s shadow for the good of the company. What bullshit.
Cassie braced herself for impact when the elevator doors opened and Graham was already stood in front of her, a half-drank cup of coffee in his hands.
Graham Montclair was an attractive man, contrary to what Cassie thought of him. He had short hair, pretty eyes, a face that wasn’t hard to look at. Still young-looking despite how the last two or three years had treated him as CEO. Cassie thought she and her brother didn’t look much alike, but people told her constantly that they had similar facial structures. He was a couple of inches shorter than Bruce, but Cassie still thought he was tall. Graham was a standardly attractive man if you didn’t include the less-than-desirable personality that unfortunately came with him.
“Oh, hey, I was just looking for you.”
Fuck. She stepped out of the elevator and offered him a smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Well, you can hold your applause. I made it, coffee and all.”
“All right, come on,” Graham said. “Meeting’s about to start. We’ve been waiting on you.”
There was a subtle weight behind his tone. Not irritation exactly, but something quieter: protection, or guardedness, maybe. Cassie didn’t return his look. Instead, she followed him down the hall toward the boardroom, heels clicking sharply against the marble floor. Neither of them spoke as the heavy glass doors closed behind them.
Inside the boardroom, the air smelled faintly of polished oak and stale coffee. The Montclair Industries board was already assembled—men in tailored suits, all middle-aged, each carrying the kind of polished self-confidence that made Cassie feel like she was sitting in a club room she had never actually been invited to join.
The board was small, but still large enough to make her feel like an intruder for the last seven years. Nevertheless, she knew a lot about each man, even if she wished she didn’t. Mr. Latham had a habit of leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers, giving everyone a slow once-over as if he was the one in charge. Then there was Mr. Barclay, who always wore an expression of polite skepticism, especially when looking in Cassie’s direction; she dealt with him a lot better than Mr. Carrington, a quiet man with sharp eyes who rarely spoke but exuded the sort of disdain that lingered even without words. The last two members of the board, Mr. Langley and Mr. Hale, both wore smug smiles and always looked at her as if she was a mid-morning snack. Safe to say, Cassie found every single one of them insufferable.
Without looking too long at any particular board member, Cassie took her seat beside Graham. He gave her a quick glance, leaning in slightly, and she caught a flicker of something in his expression that she couldn’t name.
The meeting began with the usual redundant formalities. Latham opened with a slow nod, welcoming everyone, then handed the floor to Graham. He spoke with ease, as though he had been rehearsing this moment for weeks. Cassie listened, sipping her coffee, scanning the slides as numbers and projections flickered on the screen.
When the operations report came up, Cassie noticed a subtle discrepancy with a figure for quarter three operational costs. It was higher than expected given previous trends. The figure wasn’t glaring, otherwise it wouldn’t have made it to the meeting, but it still stood out to her. She didn’t raise her hand to speak. Instead, she quietly made a note and waited, letting the discussion proceed. She wasn’t naïve. If she was going to bring light to the mistake, she had to time it correctly. When the conversation began to wind toward quarter results, Cassie finally spoke up.
“About the report, the operational costs for quarter three seem slightly higher than projected. Did we account for the adjustments from the supplier contracts?”
There was a faint murmur around the table. The second she opened her mouth, Cassie could feel the air shift. Carrington gave her a slow blink, as though surprised she was speaking. Barclay’s eyes flicked to her with an expression she could only read as polite skepticism. Latham tilted his head slightly, leaning forward, fingers steepled.
Before she could explain why she was asking such a thing, Graham said calmly, almost dismissive, “Cass, we’ve gone over this. The numbers are correct. It’s all accounted for.”
Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked at him, almost as if she was quietly saying, Fuck off, your numbers are wrong and so are you. Fix this shit so we don’t lose more money. Instead, she said nothing, keeping her mouth shut in order to not rock the boat.
He gave her a quick glance, almost as if he was trying to acknowledge her without actually speaking on it, before continuing. “Let’s not get distracted. We have bigger priorities to address.”
The room shifted again. Langley chuckled softly, and Hale nodded in agreement.
“Yes,” Latham said. “We can circle back if needed, but I think we’re in good shape.”
Cassie stayed quiet. She didn’t meet Graham’s eyes—she didn’t want to show her irritation. She knew exactly what had happened: Graham had shut her down before it could become a point of contention. It was protective, yes, but it also undermined her position.
The rest of the meeting was a blur of reports, nodding heads, and occasional interruptions. Board members spoke over each other, dismissing points that weren’t theirs to make, especially if it was something that had to do with Cassie—typical.
When Graham wrapped up the meeting, summarizing the next steps, Cassie rose quietly. She adjusted her blazer and gathered her notes. Her heels clicked softly on the marble floor as she made her way out of the boardroom.
As she walked down the hallway, Graham walked next to her, giving her a faint nod. “Don’t take it so personally.”
Cassie let the words pass without replying. She knew better than to argue with him.
When she finally stepped into her office, her mind was on that figure in that report. It wasn’t a matter of ego—it was a matter of being heard, and today, just like always, she wasn’t, even if it was about her own report. This was the work that grated her the most: not the long hours, not the endless corporate doublespeak, but the way her presence in that board room always felt like a battle she wasn’t supposed to win.
Sometimes she hated this job for that reason: she hated sitting in the unspoken boys’ club that was the Montclair Industries boardroom. She could run the optics twice over, know the numbers inside out, and still be told that she didn’t understand. Still be treated like she was a child. It was exhausting. The bitter truth was, despite her family’s name being on the side of the building she stood in, part of her knew it wouldn’t be like this anywhere else.
She told herself that if she worked as a higher-up at Wayne Enterprises, she wouldn’t have to fight so hard to be heard. Bruce cared so little about his company anyway that he already made those that worked for him listen to her. She had seen it in practice how he didn’t care if the room thought less of him for it.
That didn’t exist in Montclair Industries. Here, she was Graham’s little sister. Chris’s daughter. The Montclair spare who was supposed to sit pretty and smile as she planned parties to make her family look better. No matter how many hours she poured into her work, no matter how sharp her eye for detail, there were always mistakes left untouched, always corners smoothed over by her own brother, and she was always left wondering if she was the only person who cared enough to notice.
When Cassie finally stepped into her penthouse that evening, she finally felt at peace.
Once she made it to her room, she slipped off her blazer and draped it over one of the chairs by the window, then kicked off her heels and loosened the buttons on her blouse. It took her all but five minutes to get out of her work attire and into something more comfortable.
She poured herself a glass of pinot noir from the bottle she had opened last night and sank onto the sofa as the news played on the television. She set her phone aside and took a slow sip of wine, trying to clear her thoughts of the day.
The meeting from earlier that day replayed itself in her mind. She didn’t care that they didn’t agree with her or thought she was wrong. It was always about the way they treated her. The way they all looked at her like she was sixteen and didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. The way Graham stepped in before she could possibly make an even bigger fool of herself. Maybe he was being protective, but she only ever saw it as dismissive.
She thought about that number again and the way Graham had just brushed it aside like it didn’t matter. Her fingers tightened around her glass as she thought about it again: why does he always do that? There were always mistakes with the numbers on their reports, and she didn’t even need to be in charge to know that. It seemed like every time she noticed them, Graham would swoop in to smooth it over instead of just letting her fix it. It was like he couldn’t trust her to, or maybe he didn’t think she could fix it herself to begin with. She had started to think the ghost of their father had possessed Graham. Why else would he gloss over mistakes that could potentially cost them?
As she took another sip of wine, she thought about the pseudo boys’ club again. They didn’t see her. Not really. Every meeting with them was another year off of her life. That polite condescension that was worse than outright hostility. She knew she should push back on them, but she never did. She always let it slide rather than deal with the repercussions of defending herself. As usual, it left a sour taste in her mouth that only pinot could wash away.
She set her glass down and leaned back into her couch. Her eyes drifted to the coffee table, scattered with reports she had been meaning to review. Despite her best judgment, she decided she would save it for tomorrow night when she was more focused.
The muted glow of the television finally caught her eye as a certain news story flashed across her screen, one with the headline SERIAL KILLER CLAIMS CREDIT FOR SECOND VICTIM IN TWO DAYS: GCPD COMMISSIONER MURDERED.
“Woah,” Cassie said to herself as she picked up her glass again, sipping it as she paid attention to the segment.
“The killer posted the following message on social media. We should warn you, the video is disturbing,” the newscaster said before the video started playing.
The video that they showed couldn’t have been shot on anything more advanced than an iPhone. The man on the screen was wearing an olive green mask. Not a ski mask, not something to hide even though it hid the features of his face quite well—this one was built for a specific act. His leather face-covering and clear-framed glasses covered his face, his heavy overcoat and boots making it hard to identity any features of the man.
“Hello, people of Gotham,” he said, his voice distorted, “this is the Riddler speaking. On Halloween night, I killed your precious mayor, because he was not who he pretended to be, but I am not done. Here is another…”
He swung the camera around to show the police commissioner, Pete Savage, naked and bound with a cage-like box over his head. His mouth was covered in duct-tape with the words NO MORE LIES written in pen as rats circled his face. She thought that Savage must have been crying out of fear—she could hardly watch.
“…who will soon be losing face. I will kill again and again, until our Day of Judgement arrives. When the truth about our city will fiiiiinally be unmasked. Goodbye!”
She changed the channel when the news showed a picture of the commissioner’s smiling face and began speaking of his life and contributions to Gotham City. She couldn’t watch anymore. Somehow, this felt more grim than the mayor’s assassination last night.
Her stomach clenched at the thought. First the mayor and now the commissioner? That was two government officials assassinated in two days. This is fucking insane. Her chest tightened at the thought of Bruce having to deal with this murder too. This was worse than they had all thought.
Once she finished her wine, she moved to her balcony, sliding the glass door open. The night air was cool and still, smelling faintly of the city below. She rested her elbows on the railing and stared at the city lights stretching across Gotham.
She loved her home. It wasn’t the Montclair penthouse at the top of Montclair Tower, but she liked it that way. She liked being able to leave her work behind and at least pretend she was normal when she went home (most people weren’t able to stand on their balconies and look over Gotham City, but she ignored that part).
As she looked out at the city of Gotham, her eye caught on Wayne Tower, the building in full view across the park her penthouse looked over. The sight of the tower made her think about Bruce again. She wondered what he was doing right now. Was he out there already? Did he know about Savage? Had something else happened that she didn’t know about yet?
She spent most of her nights thinking about him. She always worried that he wasn’t safe, that he was bleeding out in some alley without any way of telling someone he was hurt. She wished there was a way to know that he was safe without seeming overbearing, or rather just have confirmation that he wasn’t dead.
Cassie always wondered if he thought about her nearly as much as she thought about him on nights like this one. She never allowed herself to think about it for too long, because she knew the answer to that already: of course he didn’t. Bruce didn’t care about anyone or anything unless it was related to the Batman, and that was something she had accepted a long, long time ago.
Gotham hummed around him as he climbed up a fire escape and to the roof of a building, but all Bruce could focus on was the faint glow of her penthouse windows.
He crouched on the edge of a neighboring rooftop, hood of his jacket pulled low, dark clothes helping him blend into the shadows as he tried not to think about the dull pain in his back from getting shot at earlier. The rain had stopped, at least for the time being, which made looking through his binoculars easier than the nights the rain wasn’t so kind.
Bruce knew he shouldn’t have been here. He always told himself that. And yet, somehow his feet carried him here anyway, as if her home had its own kind of gravity that refused to let him out of her orbit.
He told himself this was part of his patrol. Since he had become the Batman, checking on her had been part of his routine. This was just about keeping one of his oldest friends safe, and that was it. He ignored the truth that ran deeper, cut sharper than that simple thought. He needed to see her—needed to know that she was breathing, moving, living—so he could keep moving too.
Through the glass, she moved around her kitchen, wearing nothing more than what he could only assume were pajamas. The low kitchen light was warm against her hair, and her shoulders sloped with the kind of weariness he could always recognize but tried not to call her out on. She must have been cooking dinner for herself. Part of him tensed at the thought. Why are you eating dinner so late? He ignored the part of him that told him he was a hypocrite. After making herself a plate of whatever she had made, maybe noodles of some kind, she poured herself a glass of wine and curled onto the couch with the television on. A small knot in his chest loosened as she laughed at whatever she was watching.
She seriously need to start closing her curtains. Yet again, if she did that, how could he continue to check on her like this?
For a moment, Bruce let himself just watch. Watching her curl up into a blanket as she ate her dinner made his heart jolt in his chest. He wanted to step inside, to cross the street and take the elevator up and be in the same room as her instead of observing her life from the outside like a stalker. That, however, would require him to tell her about her brother, and he wasn’t sure he could handle such a conversation with her right now.
He thought about what he had learned that night again. After cracking the cipher with Alfred, Bruce had spent the rest of the morning trying to figure out what the word DRIVE could be in reference to. When he realized that the Riddler might have left something in one of the mayor’s cars—if he remembered correctly, the mayor had a thing for expensive exotic sports cars and had a private subterrenean garage—for him and Gordon to find. After getting in touch with the lieutenant, that evening, they met in the car garage below the mayor’s mansion and found a USB drive with the mayor’s severed thumb hooked onto it inside the center console of one of the cars. When they opened the thumb drive—pun probably intended—on Gordon’s computer, they found pictures insinuating that Mitchell was having an affair with a woman who worked at the Iceberg Lounge, a seedy nightclub that operated out of what used to be the old Gotham Harbor Iceberg Fish Co. warehouse, proven by a photograph that included the Penguin, Carmine Falcone’s right hand man, as well as other various people leaving the nightclub.
After leaving the mayor’s mansion, Bruce followed up that lead and went to the Iceberg Lounge to talk to the Penguin about the mayor and his presumed mistress. Of course, the Penguin claimed to know nothing, but Bruce gained another lead: one of the women working at the club knew the mistress and knew her well enough to go home. Bruce followed her to her apartment learning that the two women lived together—and were potentially in a relationship, but that was beside the point—then followed her back to Mitchell’s mansion, where the woman was trying to steal back the passport of her girlfriend, Annika. When they went back to her and Annika’s apartment, they found that Annika had been taken, and so had this woman’s phone. Bruce also learned via an unpaid bill on her kitchen table that the woman’s name was Selina Kyle—and also learned he was going to have to look into her later, because there was no way she wasn’t a successful thief of some kind with all of the gear she had in that apartment.
That was also where Bruce had learned that the person who had killed the mayor had also killed the police commissioner and was now calling himself the Riddler. How cute. As they watched the news segment about the police commissioner, Selina realized she recognized him from the club, but not the Iceberg Lounge. According to her, there was a secret club within the Iceberg Lounge called the 44 Below that catered to those with money and power, such as the mayor, the commissioner, and apparently, none other than Graham Montclair himself. When he had asked her who, she had had to stop herself from laughing.
“Lotta guys who shouldn’t be there, I can tell you that,” Selina had said, voice still brittle from her search of Annika inside their humble apartment. “Your basic upstanding citizen types.”
“Do you know any of their names?” Bruce had asked her, just wanting to gain any type of lead he could before the night ended.
“Only one I know for sure? That Montclair guy. He’s always there getting wasted. Annika says he’s a dick. A real charmer to all the girls downstairs, apparently.”
He had had to hold himself back from making a face despite the accusation. While he had always thought Graham was a dick, at least in recent years, Bruce never thought that he might be a corrupt dick.
As he thought through his conversation with Selina again, he tried to weigh his options. Maybe Selina was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Graham that she had seen at the 44 Below but another rich asshole that she had confused him with. She didn’t know Graham like he did. Yet again, he couldn’t take that chance. This was the first tangible piece of evidence he had gotten since the Riddler had started writing to him and he couldn’t risk Graham slipping between the cracks.
He clenched his jaw. Cassie couldn’t have known about this. She and her brother hadn’t been close since their father died almost three years ago, and he couldn’t imagine that Graham was keen on sharing aspects of his private life with her, especially something like that. Cassie was smart, and Graham knew that. Graham wouldn’t risk telling her something that could either implicate her or himself in something potentially terrible.
Bruce wanted to tell her what he knew. God, he wanted to tell her, but what would that do? If anything, it would send her spiraling over something that could have potentially been nothing. He didn’t want to be the reason that Cassie got into yet another argument with her brother.
His hand tightened around the edge of the ledge. He stayed on that rooftop much longer than he should have, his eyes never leaving her. Every so often she shifted to reach for the glass beside her, taking a sip of her wine before returning to whatever she was watching on the television. Every second that passed steadied him more than any victory he could have out on the streets.
He thought about going inside again. About asking her about her brother and coming up with a plan to talk to Graham Montclair about the 44 Below. The more reasonable part of him talked himself out of that first: he couldn’t involve her in this anymore than she had already involved herself. He couldn’t risk something happening to her and it being his fault.
He finally pulled himself back from the ledge. He wasn’t going to get anything productive done like this: the Riddler was waiting, and so was Gotham.
He glanced at her one last time, watching her as she finished her glass of wine, then walked into her kitchen to start cleaning up from dinner. Relief flickered through him, sharp and fleeting, before disappearing into the night again.
voirrosies on Chapter 1 Fri 31 Oct 2025 06:27PM UTC
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strangermarauders on Chapter 1 Fri 31 Oct 2025 08:48PM UTC
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voirrosies on Chapter 1 Fri 31 Oct 2025 06:28PM UTC
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tradingtruthsforlies on Chapter 1 Sun 02 Nov 2025 08:12PM UTC
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lucy56martin on Chapter 1 Tue 04 Nov 2025 06:21PM UTC
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tradingtruthsforlies on Chapter 2 Tue 04 Nov 2025 05:43PM UTC
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strangermarauders on Chapter 2 Tue 04 Nov 2025 08:52PM UTC
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