Better Late Than Never

[Susanna Gossamer]

The inky night was practically impenetrable, an uncrackable fortress for all those wishing to remain hidden in its murky depths. She ran, fast as she could, feet hitting so hard and fast against the pavement that it was painful, but she knew that it was futile. Her pursuer was faultless. He would hear her panicked footfalls. He would find her. She considered herself strong, well-trained, a cop for crying out loud, but she'd seen this guy operate. He was unstoppable.

Her lungs burned for air, her heart racing in uneven panic. She heard a noise behind her and her spirits sank. He was there! She turned to glance behind her as she ran but in her distraction her foot caught on something unseen. She pitched forward, skidding across the asphalt painfully. Hissing at the sting of raw hands, she turned, crab walking backwards further into the alleyway where she would either hide or be found. For a brief moment, there was silence but for her harried gasps.

Then whatever light there was in the alley was blocked out by a looming shadow. Her gaze jumped up to the masked figure and her terror reached a fever pitch. She looked up into the dark eyes that had come to be familiar to her, but which now stared down at her with cold indifference. She inhaled deeply to prepare for the blood curdling scream she swore she would never utter in her life.

Susanna Gossamer jumped, gasping, as she woke up in her own bed, cotton sheets half pulled off as if she had been tossing and turning. She exhaled slowly, brushing her auburn hair back out of her face with adept fingers. She closed her eyes and consciously slowed the pace of her frantic pulse where it was pumping in her chest like a battering ram against her ribs. It was just a dream, she reminded herself. A stupid, stupid dream.

Her brown eyes slid open and stared aimlessly into the semidarkness of her room, lit by the ever present light of the city through her window. Her eyebrows furrowed together in a thoughtful expression that made her look angry, and maybe she was. Maybe she was a little indignant at these dreams, at the niggling fear that inspired them, and the total idiot that had instilled it in her. Trust Upchuck to be the one to ruin her new love interest for her. She shook her head, the scene from earlier that afternoon playing out in her head.

=====

“Nah ah ah... I'm not supposed to be talking to you. You're on vacation.”

She rolled her eyes at Charlie's predictable reaction to having any kind of power over her whatsoever, something he hadn't felt since, oh, their third date or so. “Shut up, pukeface,” she responded impatiently. “That kid was my responsibility, so stop joking around and tell me what we've got.” She was glad to see he looked slightly apologetic – buffoon – and pressed him further. “Any suspects?”

He made an expression she couldn't read. “Well we don't have any physical evidence, but I think the primary contender is pretty clear.”

She racked her brain but for the life of her couldn't come up with anyone, so she looked at him perplexedly.

“Wayne,” he supplied.

She didn't know how much of her dawning surprise showed on her features but she guessed that it was enough to prompt him to explain himself.

“Come on, the guy throws a party for Harvey Dent at which the Joker comes in to kidnap him. Same thing happens a few months later, guy throws a birthday party this time and hires you to manage the security. Then, with only a handful of people knowing who's going to be there, we get this crazy email threatening the lives of all the cops who're going to be at the party.”

“Wait, what?” She shook her head. What email?

“It was in your inbox.”

“You read my mail??” she asked, infuriated.

“The Commissioner read your mail,” he corrected her, as if affronted that she thought for an instant he gave a crap what was in her inbox. “Wayne apparently doesn't know cops avoid work like the plague on their days off, because he didn't send the clue til after 5pm Friday.”

Susie shook her head. “It wasn't him.” She watched him lift an eyebrow skeptically, and though she couldn't give air to all her thoughts a lot of them revolved around 'because he's Batman.' Except, Batman was supposed to be a cop killer, too, wasn't he? The scene at the docks where he defended himself against Sergeant Gray came back to her and this time it looked a little more like an assault than defense. The idea might have run away with her, if not for one fact. “He was with me. On the balcony. It couldn't have been him.”

She felt his stare leveled at her and she almost blushed, but her mind was too busy to see it through. He spoke instead . “Pretty airtight alibi, isn't it?” he asked. “Charm a pretty cop outside to play witness for you. All it takes is an accomplice or a careful bit of rigging to get that body to drop at just the right moment.” Her eyes as she rounded back on him were boiling at being painted as the gormless girl who couldn't see through a con like that.

“Look, I'm just saying...” He raised his hands as if to defend against her murderous glare. “It's fishy. And thing is, Suse...” He looked as if he was debating continuing, but finally did. “All this seems to revolve around you. I mean, the deal with Dent happened when he was putting pressure on the mob. Now, you bust a major mob drug deal and the very next day, Wayne asks you to guard his party. Then both you and your kid cousin get creepy emails and two cops end up dead, one of them at Wayne's party where he ignored the dozens of the gorgeous supermodels he normally favors to take a cop out for a romantic chat, where her rookie then falls to his death.” He shrugged.

“Those are pretty big coincidences. Maybe this is a kind of warning or revenge, and maybe you should be careful about who you trust." His voice was disgusted as he added, "Especially slimy sleazeballs like Bruce Wayne.”

She thought there was a touch of protectiveness in his tone, or maybe it was just jealousy, or both, but her mind was ultimately distracted by the nightmare replay he had just been narrating. “I really think you've got the wrong guy,” she said flatly, with none of the usual strength she normally wielded.

He shrugged. “Maybe. Just be careful.” He stood and grabbed his jacket, but turned around to add an afterthought. “And Susie, there are gonna be people on you. Try not to kill anyone for doing their job, ok? We're all worried about you.”

He actually looked kind of sincere and for a brief moment as he walked away her feelings softened towards him. But, she still hated him.

=====

It wasn't the first time and certainly wouldn't be the last she went over that conversation in her mind, though she was no closer to understanding it. She wanted to say that she trusted Bruce implicitly and there was no reason to suspect anything, but years of experience told her that this was exactly the sort of thing that people always said before they found out they had been conned, or wound up murdered. She had never asked him where his family got their money or how they kept their nose clean when the rest of the city was inundated with crime, though these seemed like pertinent questions to her now. More importantly than even that, she now realized, she had never demanded an answer from Batman about why he had killed Harvey Dent and all those other people. That seemed like an even bigger oversight. What had gotten into her?

She didn't know, but she quickly realized that the old saying better late than never didn't just apply to birthday cards. She got dressed in the dark, careful not to cast any shadows on the windows as she moved around, and in a few minutes she was taking the steps down her apartment building by twos. She had deliberately chosen baggier clothing, her upper body covered up in one of her dad's old sweatshirts and a baseball cap which she had tucked her hair up into. She walked bouncing on the balls of her feet to give her walk a more masculine air, her shoulders hunched and her head down. She recognized one of the unmarked cars the department used immediately and avoided that direction, glad when she turned the corner without the officers following. She had to shake her head. Didn't take much.

She sighed deeply, eyes rising to the tallest building in the landscape to which she was now headed. It stood head and shoulders above the city like a guardian. She hoped that's what the man who resided there really was and not the predator that had chased her in her dreams.

[Bruce Wayne]

(Next post will be Bruce. Sorry to Squish for hijacking Alfred. *hides*)

The very select few people who truly knew Bruce Wayne also knew that the man hardly slept. What time was there for sleep, for wallowing in an phantom-like existence that could be so sweet and perfect when the real world needed him so much more? Gotham called to him and he felt a vast sense of responsibility for the city and her citizens. His parents – especially his father – had worked tirelessly to see that things were better for everyone and not just those few fat cats at the top of the food chain. Now Bruce walked in the footsteps of a man he would always consider braver, smarter and greater than himself. But even though in the dark corners of his mind he felt that he didn’t measure up to his father’s memory, he was loathe to push aside his obsession with trying.

Of the two people who were currently aware (some to a lesser degree) of that obsession, Alfred Pennyworth was carrying on about his business in the penthouse he kept for his young master and friend. Spotless as always and shining even over the top of the secrets it upheld, the apartment was benefitting from a late-night spring clean when a small knock at the door startled the elderly man out of his cleaning-and-thinking spree. Master Bruce had been gone not long since nightfall, and he felt another wave of worry wash over him as he considered the fact that Batman had been more active now that he had been officially marked as a dangerous criminal – if such a thing were even possible. As he wandered over to the door and leaned over to press the video-com button that would show the visitor on a small LCD screen beneath the light switch, Alfred reminded himself not for the first time that what Bruce really needed was a distraction.

The familiar, up-close feminine features of the person on the other side of the door presented exactly that. With instructions from Master Wayne to admit Detective Gossamer whenever she should deign to call, Alfred immediately set to unlocking the bolts and scanning his fingerprints; security measures had been stepped up tenfold since the last disturbance. When Bruce had first told Alfred of his revealing his alter-ego to a Detective the old man had been fretful. In this day and age it was often impossible to trust anyone, and he had tried in vain to talk some sense into his young charge. Not to be swayed, Bruce had eventually convinced his guardian and given him a set of explicit instructions that he knew Alfred would follow to the letter. But that didn’t mean that Alfred wasn’t free to observe.

“Detective,” he greeted the young woman in a voice warm but soft. His conversations with Bruce and his own astute mind said that it was no coincidence that she was dressed the way she was, and his tone ensured that none would hear him aside from the woman herself. “Please, do come in.” Closing and locking the door behind the woman, Alfred offered her a smile with a message behind it. “Master Bruce is not currently in,” he said, knowing that she would read between the lines. “But he has told me that you are very welcome and I am sure he would like you to wait if you feel comfortable doing so.” He paused then, unsure of whether to offer her a chair or a bed, considering the hour. “Can I get you some refreshment? Coffee, tea – are you hungry?” Perhaps actually having someone around who would make use of his services instead of dismissing him constantly would be nice after all!

[Susanna Gossamer]

She wasn't surprised to find Alfred at the door but she was a little surprised to find him lookig so alert and still dressed. "Hello," she told him at his greeting, entering as offered. She nodded her head in understanding of Bruce's whereabouts, and considered for a moment that if Batman was the murdering psychopath Gordon thought he was he certainly kept very good help. Didn't most madmen keep ugly wartfaced hunchbacks as sidekicks or something? Aside from odd sleeping hours, Alfred seemed really quite normal!

"Thanks," she said genuinely to the suggestion of refreshment. "Coffee sounds great, and conversation if you have any. I think I'll wait for Bruce, if you don't mind." She smiled in appreciation of his kindness and understanding, and hoped he didn't really mind getting her coffee. She had never been waited on in someone's home and wasn't sure what the ettiquette was, if there was any. She might ask Bruce later, if he didn't wind up being a psycho.

[Bruce Wayne]

The coffee was forthcoming , Alfred had been making some for himself anyway, and he presented it all with some understated but delicious teacakes in case the Detective needed something else in her stomach. She reminded the elderly man a great deal of Rachel, but she had something the former ADA had not. Rachel had been the kind to gloss over the tarnished side of a penny. Alfred somehow got the distinct impression from Detective Gossamer that the tarnish on anything was the first thing she looked for. Not necessarily a bad thing, he had told himself as he sipped his own coffee, their conversation brewing. Sometimes Bruce needed a little knock to force him to his senses.

“Don’t you two look cosy?” came a familiar voice from the hallway entrance. Bruce, in full bat-gear rested with his shoulder against the wall as he took in the almost comical sight. Alfred managed to look slightly put out with him, but there would be plenty of chance to discuss that (or rather, be lectured about that) later. “Sorry I missed high tea.” His amusement was plain in his voice, and he straightened. A fresh set of bruises were already forming on his ribs beneath the rubber and Kevlar he knew, and he needed to scrub off the depravity of the evening. “I don’t suppose you would mind entertaining Susie for a little longer, would you Alfred? I smell like a sewer.”

“It would be my pleasure,” the older man replied, meaning every word. When Master Bruce was sure to be out of earshot, Alfred smiled again and met the eyes of the wilful young woman sitting on the couch across from him.

“Forgive my bluntness,” he began, his crisp English accent making it seem like nothing he could ever say would be blunt, even if he tried. “But if you want to talk to someone, I am always willing to listen, Detective. Master Bruce often gets... a little carried away with himself.” He smiled tightly, a nod to the fact that anything Susanna did decide to impart on him now or in the future would remain between them and them alone.

[Susanna Gossamer]

Susie looked up from her coffee and her conversation, not quite jumping though her eyes flew up quickly. Punk, he really had to learn not to do that. Alfred was an old man! He didn't want to give his own butler a heart attack. It was only because she was distracted in peering at Bruce in his Batman gear that made Susie not roll her eyes pointedly at him. She realized that the few times she had met Batman she hadn't been given the chance to really look at him properly and had to admit that under the lights of the apartment he looked out of place. Still, she could see why people were terrified of the dark visage who flitted in and back out again. She tried not to let the shiver from her remembered nightmare show.

"Thanks," she replied to Alfred with a grin when he continued. "But, trust me when I say that if I have something I need to get off my chest, you'll know it." After a moment's contemplation she added, "Along with half the rest of the building, probably." Her smile buoyed and she took a sip of her coffee. It's not that she was indiscreet - she could keep a secret if she wanted, even when angry - but neither was she the kind of person who pent things up and held them inside until she blew. Hence being at Wayne Tower in the middle of the night! If she held things in, she'd end up in Arkham next to her mom, and she couldn't stand their horrible outfits.

She nodded her head to the place where Bruce had been standing. "Does he ever stay in and sleep at night?" she asked curiously. Though she wasn't quite sure that she and Bruce were going to start 'going steady' (gosh, that sounded like middle school talk) she suddenly realized that if they did start seeing each other seriously the challenges of dating a multimillionaire and Batman would be hers to face, and while she was married to her job she could at least say she slept. How would it feel to have a boyfriend who didn't? What kind of boyfriend would that be? She watched Alfred curiously though she didn't really expect any response other than 'no.'

[Bruce Wayne]

Alfred merely smiled at Susanna’s assertion that he would know it if she had something to say. He had privately surmised as much, but he respected the young lady for her convictions and the courage she held them with. Once Master Bruce had disappeared into the back end of the penthouse his attention was once more wholly diverted to the redhead. The smile on his face grew more nostalgic. Her question evoked a series of memories for the old man; remembrances from Bruce’s formative years. Years when the boy had been just a boy and when he had been as afraid of the dark as the next ten year old.

“Sometimes,” the old man admitted in a more colloquial version of his crisp British tone. “He needs to recharge just like the rest of us, Miss. Though he doesn’t grant himself enough time for himself, if you pardon my humble opinion.” Helping himself to a teacake and nibbling it around sips of his tea, Alfred wondered what had brought the good Detective here so late at night. Part of him hoped it was only police work. Police work had boundaries and even though it was a dangerous line of work and he worried almost constantly for young Bruce’s safety he could handle the possibilities of such a job. If she was here on more personal matters (which was the butler’s suspicion)... well. He only hoped that she knew what she was getting herself in for. As he chanced another look at Susanna’s warm chocolate eyes, he found himself worried for more than just his charge.

A few moments of comfortable silence passed, allowing Alfred to reminisce whilst Susie occupied herself with whatever thoughts she had. After a short while Bruce reappeared, dressed infinitely more casually in a pair of sweat pants and a tight tank top; his usual off-duty-on-both-accounts attire. He wandered over in the general direction of the two people waiting on him, took one look at the coffee and decided against it. Alfred, correctly interpreting Bruce’s subconscious wish excused himself politely and left the room to prepare refreshments for the starving caped crusader.

“It’s great to see you,” he told Susie genuinely, bending to kiss her lightly on the lips before flopping onto the couch beside her.

[Susanna Gossamer]

Susie could only nod gratefully at Alfred's honesty. Well, at least he slept, though the warning wasn't lost on her that her suspicions were correct regarding the kind of long-term prospect he made. Well, she supposed there wasn't much reason to plan too far ahead. The way both of them lived, either one could be dead well before 'long-term' came into play.

She was relieved, but only briefly, when Bruce reappeared. It was good to be distracted from thoughts that would only get more disturbing if they stayed on their present course, but the reality she had been brought back to was pretty grim, too. She returned his kiss, her cheeks flushing softly at the subtle familiarity the act suggested. "You, too," she responded as he sat next to her, quickly taking him in. He looked fresh and awake, but she could tell by the way slight hesitation in some of his movements that the shower hadn't washed away all of his weariness.

"I hope you don't mind the late night visit," she told him apologetically. "I figured you'd still be up." The supposition was a little cheeky, considering she had arrived well into the early morning hours, but knowing his secret it was a pretty good guess anyway. Rather than jumping right into the pretty deep topic of conversation that had really brought her here, she decided to let Gotham's guardian rejuvenate a bit, which had nothing at all to do with the fact that in his apartment and presence she was altogether too comfortable to bring up an uncomfortable dream. Not at all.

"Rough night?" she asked curiously, her auburn brows gathering slightly as she examined him, her brown eyes focused on his gray pair. It was somewhat ironic, actually, how much rougher a rough night for Batman would be than for any other average person who would claim to have one, and it was that idea that made her expression soft and anxious as she awaited his response.

[Bruce Wayne]

Bruce couldn’t help but smile at Susie’s supposition regarding his late-night tendencies, his eyes showing all the warmth and ingenuity that – as Batman – he was continually forced to hide. He bit back a yawn, which was more a product of his physical exhaustion than any real desire to sleep, and relaxed on the couch. The fabric was a soft but classy chintz, buttery to the touch and simply heaven compared to being hit in the ribs with a crowbar as he had been earlier that evening. Kevlar had its benefits and the encounter definitely could have left him a little more worse for wear; as it was he thought his top rib was only bruised and not broken. Well. He hoped so in the very least.

“No more than usual,” he replied good-naturedly, not wanting to up-talk his behaviour or put an arrogant spin on his hobby. “The mob bosses are stepping up their game. They’ve imported thugs from factions down the coast.” He shook his head, annoyed at them. No matter how hard he worked with the police, each mobster sprung a replacement before the last one had been put away. They were fighting a losing battle, and it was all he could do to remain positive about the future. Now, as he sat next to Susie, he found it a little easier to say the least.

Ever perceptive, he’d noticed the way her hair was bed-tousled and her demeanour was tinged with anxiety. A slight frown creased his forehead, a look that was so unusual for the ‘billionaire playboy’ that he portrayed by day that it looked wholly out of place without his mask to hide it. Instinctively, he reached over to place a hand on her knee, an overture meant to be supportive and a lightning rod for his concern. “What about you? Is everything okay?”

[Susanna Gossamer]

She was somewhat disappointed that he made her out so easily, but then maybe it would be good for her to be with someone who was perceptive enough to know that something was wrong. What she had said to Alfred was true - she wasn't one to hide her emotions if she needed to vent - but she was exactly the kind of person to deny their existence, particularly to herself, for as long as humanly possible. With Bruce probing for answers to her distance, it was hard not to explore it, and in this case admit the truth, even if it sounded childish and silly next to his night.

"Just a bit of nightmares," she replied honestly, her eyes falling to his hand on her knee. Considering all she had been through, nightmares actually made a great deal of sense. And yet, it hadn't been the recent events that had conjured up demons in her dreams. There were no falling comrades, no glaring question marks, or riddles she couldn't solve. Instead, there was only him turned against her. Sitting now in his apartment with his hand warmly and protectively cradling her knee, she realized that maybe the fear Charlie's supposition had struck in her had nothing to do with the cop in her; maybe, it was all to do with the woman in her.

"Can I ask you something?" she began, needing his permission before bringing up a topic so delicate. "I shouldn't have to ask it," she explained, glancing back down at herself again but then immediately meeting his gaze once more. "But it's the cop in me, and some things just don't add up." She waited for permission, hoping perhaps that he would read her mind again and she wouldn't have to ask at all. She just had to know the whole tale. The man she knew wasn't the kind who could kill Harvey Dent in cold blood. That was more like the bastard they were both chasing.

[Bruce Wayne]

At the mention of nightmares, Bruce instantly understood. He’d been plagued by nightmares for almost his entire childhood, the spectral images of bats flitting in and out of his dreamy unconsciousness. After the death of his parents, however, they had changed to a completely different set of nocturnal horrors completely. He looked at Susie for the moment, wondering what could possibly cause such a strong and capable woman to worry through her slumbering hours. He frowned slightly, her hesitant question and subsequent comments suddenly making him feel quite nervous. Nervous was not something that Bruce was used to experiencing.

“Sure,” he replied, turning in his chair to face her with his posture becoming slightly less relaxed. When her brown eyes were fixed on him again he felt the cop in her even before the words were out of her mouth. Removing the hand that now felt imappropriate on her knee, Bruce waited to hear whatever it was she was going to ask. He was certain that he’d tell the truth; she already knew the worst of his secrets after all.

[Susanna Gossamer]

She wished he hadn't pulled his hand back. It made him look like a chagrined little boy which made her feel like the angry teacher, and she wasn't. She was just the confused girlfriend, which was pretty mundane even if the subject matter that had her confused was anything but.

"I need to know what went down with Harvey Dent," she told him, and it was a mark of how long she had been in her line of work that she didn't phrase it as a question. She wasn't so much asking permission to know as expressing that she must know and he must tell her. She didn't know what the 'or else' was, but she supposed it would come to her pretty quick if he refused to tell her what had happened.

She got that distinct feeling that she was opening a can of worms, and even though she wasn't the squeamish type she hoped that she wasn't biting off more than she could chew right now by unleashing the creepy crawlies.

[Bruce Wayne]

Whatever it was that Bruce had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. The mere mention of Dent’s name shook him and for a long while he simply sat there next to her. The memories evoked by such an incantation were painful and not ones he particularly liked to remember. They were memories of Rachel, of a life he had shared with her before things became too complicated and before they went their seperate ways. They were memories of a happier Gotham, a Gotham who didn’t need a masked man to oversee the night, to keep it safe. But, most of all, they were memories that had meant he was working for the greater good rather than being painted the villain he was seen as now.

He remembered what he had Gordon had spoken about, that night when they had stood in a burned-out warehouse over the cooling body of Harvey Dent. His eyes, normally astute and ready to see through even the foggiest situation, now seemed distant and unattainable as he tried to find the words. His lips pressed themselves into a thin line. He could have lied to her, but what good would that do? He wanted her to be close to him. He trusted her.

“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain,” he murmured t himself, not really intending for her to hear it but not particularly caring if she did either. “Batman didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill him,” he rephrased, wanting – and able, he hoped – to give her the reassuranced she needed. “The truth of that night is that Harvey turned his back on Gotham, on everything he had come to believe in. The Joker got to him and brought his supressed bitterness to the surface. When I arrived at that warehouse,” he refrained from adding ‘for the second time’, “Harvey was holding Gordon’s family hostage. He shot me, and was going to kill Gordon’s kid as some kind of payback.”

He paused, looking away. His eyes settled on the peaks of one of the bridges, arching up through the blue night a few miles away like the backbone of the city. “I wasn’t hurt. My suit is too well made for that. I grappled with Dent, and we fell through an opening onto the street level.” He turned to look her in the eye then, conveying with every fibre of his being the truth that he now imparted on her. The truth that, until now, only the Commissioner and he knew. “Dent killed those five people,” he told her unwaveringly. “And he would have killed another four if I hadn’t gotten there when I did." he sighed. "He had nothing left to lose."

[Susanna Gossamer]

Susie's face was horrified as she listened to the tale. It was exactly the kind of reaction Bruce had been afraid of, and exactly the way most of Gotham would have reacted if they know the truth. She could hardly believe it, Harvey Dent who they had all thought was Batman for a while, the man they had all counted as their savior of sorts even if he had been a bit of a pain in the backside of the police department, always demanding more. It took a few moments of blinking silence before she could even verbalize her shock over the discovery that even Dent, their White Knight, had been corruptible.

But it was more than that. There was the whole other side of the spectrum. If Batman was indeed blameless, and if Gordon knew it, why were they hunting him? Countless man hours were being spent on the effort, largely useless, to find him, and they were all instructed to shoot or capture him on sight. And now Bruce was being forced to dodge the very people he was working for in his effort to protect Gotham. She couldn't get past the natural feelings of protectiveness over him and the Police Department, both, to see the broader picture as he did. She couldn't fathom the strategy.

"But why??" she asked. "Why let everyone believe that you killed him? Everyone in Gotham thinks you're a heartless killer, and you aren't! You're the only hero we have left! We need to be able to believe in you." She seemed genuinely troubled by the idea, suddenly more worried than ever that Gotham's general distaste for Batman might come back to haunt him, and the worst part, in the end, would be that it was totally undeserved.

[Bruce Wayne]

The cold sensation in the pit of Bruce’s stomach didn’t move despite him having tried to shift it with a large amount of truth, and he felt cheated. Telling the truth was supposed to make you feel good, wasn’t it? Why, then, when he looked at Susie’s wide eyes did he feel that he was worse than what Gotham considered him to be? The shock on her face was exactly how the rest of the city would have reacted to find out that their man on the pedestal had been fallible, and Bruce couldn’t allow it to happen. He searched Susie’s face for a moment as though expecting to find the answer to her own question hiding somewhere beneath her barely-there freckles.

“Because Gotham needs Harvey Dent, Susie,” he explained softly. “It’s easier for them to believe that a nutcase in a bat suit hiding in the shadows is a bad guy than to learn that they misplaced their trust in someone who worked really hard to earn it.” His smile was ghostly, there one second and gone the next like some fickle apparition. He needed her to get it, to understand why he did the things he did. It meant more to him than anything, her believing that what he was doing was right. He’d never met anyone who had a straighter head on their shoulders than the woman now sitting across from him.

Bruce reached out, taking both of her hands in his. He had a long scar running along his left arm from his wrist to his elbow; remnants of surgery he required after ‘playing polo’. He still hated horseback, not the least because he had been forced to throw himself off one of the creatures in front of a crowd to make his injury plausible. He looked down at their hands together, slipping his fingers through hers as he savoured the connection he felt with her for a moment. “It doesn’t matter what Gotham thinks of me,” he told her then, looking up and meeting her concerned gaze. What he didn’t say was that it only mattered what she thought.

[Susanna Gossamer]

It occurred to her then that until that moment she didn't really know the full weight of his sacrifices for his city, and because of that didn't yet really know him. She understood that he was Batman, yes, but she didn't understand just how much of him was Batman. She had met him first as Bruce, and so she naturally assumed that the majority of his person belonged to that half, per se, of his life. But as she looked at him now, she realized that wasn't really the case. Though he may have been born Bruce Wayne, the truth was that the man before her was less that man now than ever. He was now, entirely, Batman, and Bruce Wayne was the mask he wore. And Batman was a thankless warrior, someone who didn't need to be appreciated, someone who could be outcast, and, quite frankly, the strongest person she had ever met in her life.

In that moment, she loved him for his selflessness. And in that moment, she mourned because she knew she could never love any part of him - not Bruce, not Batman, not any of him - in public. She couldn't defend Bruce Wayne to her friends, because he needed to be that bumbling playboy by day. And she couldn't defend Batman, because she needed to be a hard-nosed detective. Everything Batman touched was cloaked by association, and if she loved him she would always have to do so in secret. It was sobering and, if she was very honest with her self, completely heartbreaking.

She didn't know if she had what it took to live this life alongside him, and she knew now that if she was going to be very serious about him she would be leading his secret, his sacrifice, and his risk just the same as him. But she did know that on this night, at least, one of Gotham's citizens was incredibly, deeply grateful for all he did for their city. She didn't have the words to say it, even if words existed that could express that kind of gratitude. So she told him in the only way she knew how, and hoped that somehow he just understood.

She lifted one of her hands from his, smoothing his hair before coming full circle to rest on his cheek. Her brown eyes in this instant swept his features, as if committing them to memory, or as if awed by their very composition. The miraculous look, though, really lied in her own chocolate gaze, which showed not only understanding of his reasons, but acceptance and even admiration. A very soft smile barely ghosted across her lips before she leaned forward and pressed them to his. They had shared a few liplocks in their brief couplehood, from the passionate to the practical, but this was somehow different, colored in a way by her own complicated but blossoming feelings toward him. Her other hand mirrored its partner and pulled him deeper into her kiss, and it quickly became apparent that this kiss, at least, wasn't likely to come to a tame and wistful end. Between his Ducati and his heart he had managed to win hers.