Chapter Text
Gotham is a notoriously bad town. It's hard to go a week without some new horror in the news, or even in your own personal life, you yourself were caught up in the midst of some Riddler thing last week for a few hours before batman could unlock the door to a bank vault you and some hostages were stuck in. Though, admittedly, most day to day crime was not of the supervillain variety, watching a petty thief break into a jewelry shop across the street, a hold up in a grocery store, or a mugging in an alleyway.
So, when you were walking home, grocery bags dangling at your sides, you startled less than maybe the non-Gothamite would when you heard a weak grumble from a dark alley, and spotted a hunched figuring, slumped against a wall. You stumble, before quickly darting into the alley - the normal alarm bells ringing - this could be a ploy to catch an unsuspecting person of guard and mug them , and you did literally have food on you, you prepare yourself to swing a pack of soda at a man's head full force if need be.
You slip to the person's side, at first you had subconsciously noted how much they had blended into the surrounding darkness, and then you registered that they had to have been wearing all black to do so, but it's not until you're kneeling at the semi-unconscious figures side do you realize they're covered in a black cape, dangling uselessly over their shoulders, and from their dangling head, in the darkness you make sense of two little, pointy bits of fabric - and carefully lifting their chin, you meet the face of the illusive, but not unfamiliar Dark Knight.
You're almost more startled by his face than his state of body, recognizing that you're this close to the Batman , you're not sure anybody ever gets this close without being in direct combat with him. Suddenly you realize this isn't just Batman, this is vulnerable, injured Batman, a Batman who had been left unconscious in an alley. You quickly shift, setting the rest of your bags down before attending to the man in front of you.
As delicately as possible, you shift the cape over his shoulder, gasping gently under your breath as his torso becomes visible. He was at one point clenching his side, but his hand has fallen limp, his entire left side is drenched blood, staining his hands and his suit. something deep in your gut twists at the splotches of red overtop of the yellow insignia. Your city's protector, a man who has saved your life more times than you can count is passed out from blood loss in an alleyway, and you're the only person on earth who knows this.
You can't take him to a hospital, you know how secret identities work and why a man would hide his as well as the Bat does, they'd remove his cowl while treating him, which could put him in even more danger. You can't leave him, even if he didn't need medical attention, leaving him knocked out in an alley was practically assuring he'd get murdered, or mugged, or his mask removed to some shitty two-bit crook. That only leaves one option, and thankfully, you're only a block away from your apartment.
Carrying both four bags of groceries, and a 6 foot 3" unconscious vigilante is about as hard as anyone could expect it to be. You do your best to hoist his arm over your shoulder, how you'd carry someone with a twisted leg, though, people with twisted legs can walk on their own, so you wrap both your arms around his torso, his wound pressed directly against your shirt. Great, you're covered in bat blood.
You hobble into a back alley, one you know will lead directly to the back entrance of your apartment.
After setting both The Caped Crusader and Your groceries down against a wall, you unlock the back entrance, godbless your landlord for giving everybody in your building that key. The door leads straight onto a stairwell, and you resign yourself to the knowledge you are going to have to lug the Batman up 4 flights of stairs.
You take off your hoodie, pressing it firmly against where you imagine his wound must be, and hold it between your torsos - if only to keep the janitor from having to clean up the trail of blood he'd leave otherwise, before entering the building.
You make it into your apartment undisturbed, thankfully nobody had been wandering the halls at 10pm on a Tuesday. Out of breath and arms sore, you drop your groceries hard onto the carpet, before slamming your door shut with your shoulder. You stumble to your couch, and deposit the Batman, before collapsing next to him on your floor.
You allow yourself just a moment to breathe, before pulling yourself onto your coffee table, ignoring the way both it and your cheap couch are being stained. You remove your fundamentally ruined jacket, and inspect his wound.
It's a bullet wound for sure, you grimace inspecting it, what kind of jackass shoots batman and then just runs away? You figure by the lack of exit wound that its still inside him , but you are not anyway near medically trained enough to try and fish it out, and you know for certain you've read that it's just safer to keep it in sometimes, and you hope that's the case here.
You leave for a moment, procuring every single roll of paper towel you have in your apartment, and a few towels, and start cleaning your hands, and around his wound. After the area is literally dripping in bodily fluid, you inspect it again, he isn't bleeding much anymore, which is a good sign, but he still is. You quickly clean the site with some rubbing alcohol and a clean towel, before pulling out a roll of bandage wrap you had secured from your bathroom closet. Wrapping it tightly around his torso, before pressing your hands against the wound, and leaning yourself as best you can against him. Your arms hurt and you're exhausted, and you know you're weak as hell, but you do your best to apply pressure, to stop the bleeding. This man has done so much for you, for your city, you're not gonna let a little exhaustion keep you from trying to save him back.
You watch the gentle rise and fall of his chest, and pray you're doing enough.
You're not counting, but it's about a half an hour in when you stop applying pressure, trusting the gauze to be enough. You lean back, your arms, back, and generally your entire body hurts - but like hell you're going to bed. You lean forward, elbows on your knees, and continue to half watch over the masked man, at a point becoming completely zoned out.
It's nearly an hour in when he stirs. A light groan knocking you out of your thoughts, his face screws tight in pain, and his arm quickly moves to his side, that's all he does to move for awhile, and you quickly move as well, standing up and getting a glass of water, as well as some pain meds and some leftover food - some pasta from last night, you figure food is probably good for blood loss. You wash your hands again for good measure.
After a few more minutes of nothing, he starts moving again, properly shifting, before you think you see his eyes squint open under his cowl. Immediately after he startles roughly, attempting to push himself up, he flinches, loudly groaning as he agitates his wound. He stops trying to move but frantically looks around, eyes scanning your apartment before locking eyes with you, you think you see him glare.
"Hey- hey hey calm down!" You quickly move forward, attempting to steady his shoulders, he pulls back quickly, you do as well, worried you startled him. "Calm down, I'm not here to hurt you." You say gently, before leaning back, picking up the glass of water and the bottle of meds, unscrewing the lid and pouring a few in your hands. "Tap water, and extra strength ibuprofen. If you want you can watch me in the kitchen from the couch get a different glass if you're worried about the water. " You offer them to him, he pauses, thinking, before taking the pills, inspecting them carefully, before downing them dry. He takes the glass of water, before setting it back down on the table. You take the hint, standing up.
"I also left you some food, I can't prove that's clean but - you lost a lot of blood, so I'm hoping you'll have some." you glance back, the man is inspecting you closely, for some reason it makes your hair stand on end. Your small kitchenette is visible from the living room, so he watches as you dump the water and pour a second cup. You set it to the side in his line of sight, before grabbing another cup, getting some water from the same tap, before taking a sip yourself - impulsively downing a fair bit of it - you hadn't realized how dry your throat had gotten. You pick up both glasses, and make your way back to sit on the table, this time, the vigilante accepts the water.
"Here," you mumble quietly, picking up the pasta, pulling out a second fork you had brought from the kitchen, and taking a small bite - God you were hungry, but you hold back on indulging on anymore, sliding it over to the man, he eyes it before taking it himself.
The man is silent, he had pulled himself into a sitting position, and was quietly eating, every so often flicking his eyes up to inspect you. You get it, he's a man in a dangerous line of work, you'd be more worried if he weren't paranoid. After a few moments, he speaks. "Where am I, and what time is it?"
His voice startles you a little, it's very deep, but almost less than you anticipated. You'd never heard him speak before, but his voice was known to strike fear. But it sounds a little too dry, too weak to do that to you now.
You flick your eyes to a clock on the wall behind him. "11:34PM. You're on 5th street, downtown, apartment building 211. I found you passed out just down the street, you've got a bullet wound in your abdomen."
He pauses, his face is notably not very expressive, but you think he's thinking. idly, you recognize that behind the cowl he has blue eyes. They look nice.
"I need to go." He shifts to stand.
"That's fair, do you need any help on the way- woah!"
He stumbles, eyes rolling back into his head before he starts falling, you quickly try to stand and catch him - but your delayed reaction means he falls directly onto his face against your carpet, you wince, trying to roll him over in the tight space between the couch and the legs of the table.
"Oh- jesus." You mutter, he groans in response, pulling himself up using the couch, you quickly try to inspect his face from your position kneeled in front of him. Oh god, he must've landed directly on his nose, you wince. Carefully, you hook your arms under his, and attempt to help him stand up, he stumbles, but you successfully lay him back down on your couch. He sniffs, before lifting a stained glove to his face, squinting his eyes in pain.
"Blood loss, remember? You're gonna be light headed, let- let me see your face." You say gently, sitting back on the table and leaning forward, carefully placing your hand on top of his, he allows you to pull it away from his face. As you suspected, he managed to trigger his body to release even more blood, as it was now gushing out of his nose. You sigh, shifting to pick up a roll of paper towels.
You very gently take his jaw in one hand, dabbing at his upper lip with the other, trying not to focus on how close your face is to his. It'd be weird for you to get flustered about Batman, right? I mean sure, he is. Very tall. And very muscular, and up close you can tell he's got pretty nice cheekbones, and gentler eyes than you'd expect, and soft lips-
You clear your throat, pulling away.
"Please be careful, you're already injured, and I'm not sure how I feel about you leaving if you're just gonna pass out in another alley." You say, with a touch of sarcasm, but you quickly soften as the man shifts to lay down slightly. Though, almost immediately after registering your words he visibly startles, shoulders jumping - before quickly raising a hand to the side of his face, he stops, looking at you.
"Excuse me, may I… Have a moment?"
"Of course, man. I'm gonna- clean my table..." You say with a touch of minor but undirected disgust. You stand, taking a roll of paper towels with you to the kitchen.
"Come in, Come in. Are you there- " he mumbles a name you can't quite make out, before going silent.
"Yes, I'm fine. I was injured, but a civilian found me and treated my wounds, I'm currently experiencing mild symptoms of blood loss, I'm taking the opportunity to rest in their apartment, I'll be back on the street within the next- no, I- I can't come home it's only-"
"You're just planning to get back to crime fighting after you leave??" You start, a little incredulous, the Batman looks at you, startled, before tilting his head back away to listen to his earpiece, shifting his head a few times trying to focus on the at least two people talking to him.
"I have to- no, no , I can't just- Alfred. I- " he mumbles the last bit very quietly, but you pick it up.
You suppress a smile, he's clearly getting chewed out.
"Can the person on the line hear me?"
" I won't- yes he c- i can't just-" he almost seemed like he didn't mean to respond to you, but you take the opening.
"Hey," you start, loudly. "To whoever that is, if you're worried about Bman let it be known immediately after waking up from a mini-blood loss coma he tried to stand up and almost re-passed out from lightheadedness. He beaned his head directly against my carpet and gave himself a bloody nose."
His eyes visibly widen from behind the cowl, before he closes them in resignation, pinching the bridge of his nose from under his mask as whoever is in his ear piece gives him what-for.
"Yes. Alright. Okay. I will…. Goodbye. You to." He takes his hand away from the side of his face, and you suppress a smile, turning around to wet some of the paper towels, before coming back to the living room, leaning over to wipe the half dried blood from your poor, poor coffee table.
"Who was that on the line, your dad?" You joke with a slight smile, The vigilante looks up at you with an unimpressed look, you still, before looking back down. "Sorry… but it's nice you have somebody who seems to care about you not killing yourself in the streets. Trust me, man. You should get treated for that wound, you've still got a bullet in you." You say bluntly, looking back at him, he has the grace to look contemplative.
"Do you…" You worry the inside of your mouth for a moment. "Do you have anybody to like… take care of your wounds back at- batman HQ or whatever? Because I doubt John-Doe can just walk into a hospital with a bullet wound and not get asked any questions. And I don't want to google how to remove a bullet and give somebody stitches."
"You've done enough for me already, I wouldn't expect anymore from you." He states, simply and monotone.
"Are you kidding me, dude? You're fucking- you're Batman! Man! I'd give you a fucking arm if you wanted one, I owe you." He doesn't respond, looking down - he's a quiet one, which to be fair, you expected from a man called the 'Dark Knight.' You stand up, carefully dumping the blood stained paper towels into the bin, before promptly almost tripping over your bags - oh yeah, you never put your shit away.
You sigh, leaning over to pick up your groceries, and move to your kitchen.
"You know I uh, I was at that riddler thing last week. When he trapped a bunch of hostages in a bank vault - said he was gonna gas us out if you didn't solve some riddle? And that thing with the penguin two months ago, and some joker thing last year. That's Gotham for ya… Fuck." You pull out what is now a quarter of a gallon of milk, grimacing, a hole in its side had caused it to all pour out into the bag, ruining some of the other food inside, and glancing to your side, also your Carpet. You quickly drop the broken gallon in your sink, then groan loudly, dropping your head into your hands.
"Fuuuckkk!" You moan dramatically, you had SO much shit to clean up. AND you'd need to go back to the store tomorrow! And your fucking dinner is now covered in milk!
"That's it, I'm ordering takeout, do you want- what are you doing?" You turn around, to see Batman up! He had stood up when you turned around, you hadn't even heard him - but he had stopped halfway to you when you looked at him - like a deer in headlights. He paused, straightening his back, cape draping over his shoulders, obscuring the bandages around his torso - before trying to continue walking to you, he was limping, you raised an eyebrow.
He walks to the counter separating the kitchen from the living room, and pulls out - a roll of paper towels from under his cape, seemingly recognizing that you had left the few rolls you had left over near the table. The pointed edges of his bloodied gloves extended to you, silently, you smile a little weary, taking it from him.
"Thank you, caped crusader , I'm getting chinese, do you want any tangerine chicken?" You ask, sincerely, wiping down your counter and trying to salvage what food you can.
"...I'm alright, thank you."
You smile, a little amused. "I didn't expect The Batman to have such good manners! That Alfred guy must've raised a good kid." You try to call back to the earlier dad joke, but he visibly startles. Oh right, secret identity, he probably doesn't want you knowing somebody he works with.
"Sorry! I was-! dumb joke... don't worry, If I wanted to pry a secret identity from you I'd have done it while you were knocked out." You make a gesture with your hand - as if you were removing a mask from your own face. "I've got ADHD and a memory so bad I forgot I had food to put away for an hour and a half. I'll forget your- co-workers? name by tomorrow." You attempt to reassure.
He doesn't respond, swiveling around, and limping back to your couch. It was mildly comical watching a man in such a dramatic costume stumbling into your small - shitty apartment. You'd have cleaned up if you knew you would be having company, but as it is you'll need to do a lot more cleaning up later, anyway. Batman seems to realize this as well, coming around the side of the couch, pausing to stare intently at the huge deep red stain in the upholstery. There's something familiar in the way he pauses, silently, taking in his surroundings. You do it a lot too, inspecting little things, getting lost in thought, thinking over what to do, or say in a given situation. He seems like he gets lost in his own head a lot, "world's greatest detective" for ya, overthinks everything. You get it.
You pull your phone out of your bloodstained jeans - registering distinctly that you should get changed before the delivery guy shows up - and dial the chinese place down the street, it was so close it'd probably be quicker just to walk, but you are too exhausted. You place your order - throwing in an extra side for the big man, before slipping past the living room.
"I'm gonna change before the guy gets here, when he does you can duck into the hallway, it's not visible from the door. Try not to - get blood on anything while I'm in my room, but feel free to take a look around. I trust you not to steal my shit."
While changing, you find he does in fact look around, you hear the door to your bathroom click open and closed, then the faucet turn on. shoving a pajama shirt on as you stumble out.
"I've got some Neosporin above the sink." You state simply, you hear him grunt from inside the room, presumably washing his hands, and potentially his wound. You walk past the bathroom and into the living space, tossing a blanket from your room over the bloodstained couch, hiding a few other things like your jacket underneath it. Throwing a second blanket down on the floor, covering the drops of blood that had landed on your carpet from the drag up here. After a few more wipedowns of the table and counter the Batman returns - a distinctly new gauze wrapped around his suit, he must've gotten it from his little bat-belt.
"So, where'd the bat thing come from?" You ask simply. He blinks.
"... It's a common phobia, an intimidation tactic." You smile, a little surprised he responded.
"Really? I love bats, personally. Though- there was this one time in like, eighth grade - gotham middle school is insane, they took us on a field trip out of town to this big barn to learn about - animals or whatever, some biology class, and we were just dive bombed by like 200 bats! Just a bunch of thirteen year olds swarmed by the things, scared the SHIT out of everybody. But still- great animals. You ever see fruit bats? They're fucking- they're dogs with wings its insane that god let that happen." You ramble, sort of incoherently. You're not a not-quiet person but when placed with a very quiet person you get this weird instinct to talk. You don't like dead air. At least not with people you don't know very well.
"... Would you like to see images of fruit bats?"
Batman just stands there, he hasn't sat down, presumably not wanting to re-bloody the blanket you set down to hide the evidence, so he just sort of looms in your hallway, quietly.
"... Sure."
You impulsively break into a grin, you really hadn't expected that. You quickly pull out your phone and move to his side.
"So- I totally got off my point, so what happened after that was everybody was convinced this kid named Edward had rabies … I think he actually turned out to be the Riddler-" the doorbell rings, both of you flick your heads to the door. You glance back to Batman, who quickly shifted into the shadows of the hallway, you nod, before standing up and moving to the door.
"Hey, rick! Sorry for the delivery so late at night, a friend showed up." You greet the delivery boy.
"Yeah, man no problem! I get it, I'm clocking out after this, so thanks for making my last delivery so close. That'll be... 25.15."
"Yeah 'course let me…. Shit. Fuck, man I'm two dollars short, I'm sorry, I'm not getting paid for a few and I spent all my money on grocerys - and half of em got ruined on the way home… Shit, i'm Sorry for making you come out."
"Hey man don't worry, I'll float you. I still owe you from the other week."
"Dude, rickie holy shit you're a lifesaver man!"
"No problem, no problem!" Your friend smiles, handing you the boxes of takeout, you hand over what money you have and he slips into his bag giving you a grin and a pat on the shoulder, you smile.
"See you at work man!"
"You too!"
You click the door shut, sighing.
"It's safe to come out, he's gone." You say, simply, unloading the boxes onto the counter, taking out a few containers, compulsively shovelling some noodles into your mouth with the cheap plastic chopsticks.
The batman shifts into your living room, cape drawn around him. He eyes the food for a moment, before looking towards the window.
"... I think I need to get going."
"Shit, alright, that's fair… you think you'll be able to get home fine?"
He nods once, simply, before making his way across the room to your window, you startle, quickly opening your fridge, before moving around the counter, grabbing one of the boxes of food
"Wait-!" You quickly rush to his side, holding out the food, and a bottle of water. "Take this, for the road, please. I'd feel like shit if I didn't give you something to eat if you felt light headed. I didn't do all this work for you to pass out again…"
He cautiously, reaches out, taking the offerings from you, you smile.
"...And hey, if you're ever in a pinch and in the area." You clap him on his shoulder, he doesn't flinch. "That window never locks." You give a half-smile, an attempt at sincere humor. He nods, before turning around, pulling the window open and bring his knee up, readying to leave, before pausing, and looking back at you for a moment, contemplative.
"... Thank you."
You smile, kindly. "'Course man, take care out there."
He nods, before slipping out of your apartment, and into the night.
You sigh, weary, closing the window and letting the exhaustion ring through you. You quickly gather the rest of your food, and eat it in the silent apartment, before resigning to your bedroom.
Entering, you catch sight of something on your bedside table, something green. Approaching it, you recognize them to be money, 5 bills… 5 hundred dollar bills.
Holy shit.