Chapter Text
He has always been tender to the touch.
Long before the Batman bruised him —he needn’t pummel him like he did the lowlife criminals that roam Gotham in the nighttime; a cruel rejection through the opaqueness of an Arkham glass partition struck him much more violently than fists ever could— Edward was aware of his peculiar tactile sensitivity. Unwelcome touches feel like being licked by a cat’s tongue: a myriad pinpricks assaulting his skin, fair and much too thin, like silk paper.
His preference for multiple layers and baggy clothing obeys a need to distance his flesh from the outside world, a world that has shown nothing but the utmost unkindness to him. The city in which he was born, the death of his parents, the bullies and the abusers at the orphanage, the apathy of everyone else. The sneer on the Batman’s mouth when they spoke. An onslaught of harm, relentless and unforgiving.
Except for her.
Welcome touches have been scarce in his life; mostly by choice, he reckons. There have been instances, places, people that have been shelters, soft covers warmed by the hearth. One of them is dead. His death could be traced, like all wretchedness in Gotham, to Carmine Falcone’s hand. Firing the weapon that killed that rat didn’t bring the man he had loved back to life, but it sure as fuck evened the score. Falcone now rots in the ground alongside him: equals at last.
The other one is tucked away safely in Blüdhaven. Her touch lingers, warm and velvety. He can pinpoint every inch of skin she stroked: his neck, when she sat astride him on the sofa; the ridge under his nose, when he knelt before her and begged for the grace of her forgiveness; his chest, his waist and his back, when she lied on the armrest, legs open and cunt glistening. His cock, his hard, throbbing cock, when she pleasured him with her hand —the heat of her mouth and her cunt are in a different mind box, one that he opens when his yearning becomes unbearably carnal and he has to touch himself, alone in the darkness of his cell.
The touch he remembers most, however, is when she rubbed her thumb over a patch of skin on his thigh. That minuscule spot near his right hipbone sports her mark, for it feels as if she had branded him. He saw her touch him; he saw himself entering her, again and again, and he saw her breasts sway to the pace of his thrusts, and he saw her gaze, glossy amidst the shadows of her living room, focus on that single caress, as if she were a diligent surveyor and he were inscrutable land.
For many nights, when the bitterness of the Batman’s rejection was a fresh, tender wound, his biggest regret was his misplaced faith in the vigilante. To think he’d found a kindred spirit, a partner who matched his righteousness and would join him in his crusade. What a fool he had been. But the foolishness of that belief was only outweighed by the ache of a missed opportunity.
That night, the night he saw her last, could have been spent with her. He had wanted to shed his clothes, to be as bare to her as she was to him. She could have mapped his entire body with her fingertips; his flesh could have dipped under her touch, skin alight with every stroke. What a fool he had been.
The thought of her hand pressed to the interstices of his ribs, of his heartbeat drumming under the pads of her fingers makes him fucking lightheaded. He cannot ease that ache by jerking off; for that, he needs to close his eyes shut and take deep breaths and chase the thoughts away. They lurk in the corners of his mind, never truly gone, taunting him with wasted possibilities. There were times when he had to stop himself from taking her from the sofa and laying her on her bed, just so he could lie beside her, his hand on her waist, his uncovered face buried in her hair.
Sleep is as scarce in Arkham as it was in his somber apartment, but at least outside the prospect of seeing her was solid. Her need beckoned him; he could feel her pulling the thread that bound their ribcages together, and ignoring it was an inevitable source of guilt. He never said those things to her, and he doubts he would say them were they to meet again (when they meet again.)
He wants to show her. He wants to make the space between their bodies indiscernible; he wants to hold her tightly as she drifts off, safe in his embrace. Has she struggled with sleeplessness in his long absence? Does she dream about him? He wonders if she’s well, if she’s content. He tries to imagine her new place; he pictures it small, like the one in Gotham. She’s frugal and has a tendency toward unobtrusiveness, as if she were averse to being seen. Not by him, though. Even in the dark, she reveled in his gaze.
He wonders if she sleeps in her bed or if she now has a habit of sleeping on the sofa. Does she think about him? Does she touch herself to the memory of their encounters, of him? He wonders if she has sought to relieve the ache between her legs with others. The thought should trouble him, but it doesn’t. Her desire was a living organism, one that required tending, nurture. He could not give her that. He made the choice to carry his plans to term, and he has accepted the consequence of that choice: losing her touch.
Being wanted had felt so foreign after years of solitude and detachment. His visits never had an ulterior motive; he was moved by a sense of duty, of responsibility toward her well-being. He had felt somewhat at fault, letting the assault continue for as long as it did. Her fear was tangible in that foul office, yet he needed the CEO as distracted as possible; he was a large man and large men are capable of reciprocating an attack, even while injured. Fire arms are too impersonal; he is fond of hands-on violence, of the brutality of close contact. It’s the only method that allows him to return the cruelty he has been subjected to his entire life.
An innocent —a victimized— bystander becoming the object of his concern was a surprise, yet not an unpleasant one. Watching her allowed him to root out emotions he had buried with the man who was taken from him. Are you alright? Let me see. Let me heal you. She had found him, his body, reassuring, comforting. Safe. She had touched him with desire, with longing. She had sought his touch, his skin. It felt foreign, yes, but it also felt thrilling. His body responded, tingling all over, yearning for her warmth, basking in its glow.
Edward seeks what he lacks. The man he had loved was lively, bold, overwhelmingly cheerful. The Batman is strong, adept at combat, imposing. Treacherous. She is soft, frank, transparent. Open. What is he, in her eyes? News channels broadcasted his entire history for all of Gotham to learn. Did she see it, too? Is he now a deranged buffoon, like the man in the next cell? Does she pity him? He would take her disdain, her fury, her oblivion before her pity.
He watches the dirty orange light rise and fall in his cell and he schemes with the clown and he masturbates to the memories of her wet mouth and her eager hands and the way she said his name. He fantasizes about her lying on this stiff cot with her legs snaked around his neck and his tongue running along her cunt, her taste coating his teeth, dripping down his throat. She presses her knees to his waist as he fucks her against the bars of his cell, Arkham empty and tinged in dying sunlight, the echoes of her moans traveling down the corridors, her fingers tight on the metal bars behind her.
And when his eyes are tired and the madman in the next cell is muttering nonstop, Edward pictures himself outside, in her apartment, on her bed, his limbs loose in utter comfort, her breath steady on his face as she sleeps, skin bare like his own, so he can feel its heat, so he can take shelter in it. Arkham is so fucking cold. Criminals, monster men aren’t deserving of warmth.
He’s not a monster, not yet; she is proof of that. He knows he is considered by many a vile murderer. A terrorist in the hypocritical eye of the State; a deranged killer in the eyes of the public. The same public who was aware of the corruption of Gotham’s elite and the complicity of the law. The same citizens who would gladly spend their dime —if they had it— in 44 Below, that den of corrupt men, of abusers and rapists.
Perhaps he is what they call him. Perhaps he is Gotham’s boogey-man. But not to her. Not to those who, like him, are victims of a depraved system, of a wheel who tramples the ones who make it turn.
Edward has always been tender to the touch, and this tenderness has shown him the value of a wanted touch. Of a requited embrace. She wanted him to touch her, and he obliged, for he wanted to touch her, too. His scarred fingertips itch with the need to feel her once more. With patient work and maybe some luck, he will get another chance.
Gotham seems to be a poison that corrodes everything it touches, including its surroundings. Blüdhaven is permeated by the same crookedness that rules his hometown, and Edward almost wishes she had decided to go somewhere else, somewhere far where not even he could reach her. But she didn’t. She does live, however, in a less seedy neighborhood.
She made sure to leave a trace noticeable only to someone who might set out to find her: search histories, emails, traffic routes. He’s not quite sure his snooping constitutes an invasion of privacy; it’s clear she wanted to be found, so she dropped crumbs on the pathway. He established some limits, not only to allow her some sense of safety, but to keep his own worst impulses in check. He doesn’t track her phone, only her computer. He purposefully ignores her incognito searches. He wants to ask her directly what she fantasizes about, what she gets off to. Simply imagining her murmuring those words in his ear, against his skin, makes all of his blood rush to his cock.
I was thinking of you. Before, in my bed. The way she casually admitted to masturbating to thoughts of him had felt like being given green light to feel things rather than examine them from a comfortable distance. It was that admission what set in motion the events that led to their… attachment. Two lonely people reaching across the void of their existence, fingertips brushing, fingers twining.
He now follows the thread she laid out and finds her in an apartment in Blüdhaven. She is on the other side of a closed door. The thread is red, like Ariadne’s. Where did he read that? He cannot recall. She is alive, breathing, moving. The thread is taut; it has endured his time in Arkham. Has she heard of his escape? Is her forehead pressed to the wood of the door, like his own?
He knocks three times. All he can hear is the dripping of rainwater on the floor. He wants her to rid him of this heavy raincoat, to undress him, to unearth him. Steps approach the door. She must be looking through the peephole. His face is bare, save for his glasses. She opens the door abruptly, and—
“Edward.”
Only she can utter his name with such softness. They stand on either side of the threshold, looking at one another. “Take off that raincoat, I’m not gonna mop at this time of night.” She is alive, breathing, smiling. She hasn’t changed, yet she looks better. Healthier. But she is the same.
His fingers are stiff due to the cold, and he struggles with the buttons. She watches him, eyes following the movement, and he suddenly remembers how he touched her on her sofa. How he licked her taste off of them as he left her apartment, promising to himself he would make her come with his mouth next time.
She takes the raincoat and shakes it before hanging it on a rack he can’t see. Her smile widens when she sees his jacket. It’s not the one he owned; most of his possessions were confiscated by the police. But it’s the same green jacket.
Strange how this very moment reminds him of watching the water flow over the streets of Gotham. There is a dam breaking: he can hear the concrete shattering, he can feel the waves rushing toward the shoreline, swallowing it whole. He is engulfed by them, he is overwhelmed, he is stepping forward and embracing her, salted water pouring through him. He holds her close, so close, face burrowed in the smooth curve where her neck meets her shoulder, inhaling her. His arms are tight around her, proving she is solid against him, not an illusion nor a specter he conjured. He feels her hands in his hair, around his neck, down the front of his jacket.
“Take it off, take it all off,” he hears himself saying. “Touch me,” he whispers, desperate.
The green jacket is discarded, then the hoodie. Her fingers are agile in their unveiling; he raises his arms so she can lift the t-shirt over his head, and he kicks off his boots so she can slide his pants down his legs. She has stripped him down to his boxers and socks. His breath comes out in short gasps, as if he’d been running. Finding himself under her scrutiny isn’t as unnerving as he might have expected. She eyes him with… fondness.
Did you miss me? He wants to ask, but refrains. She takes his hand and leads him to her bedroom, making him lie down on the bed, removing his glasses and setting them on the night table. She settles next to him, warm hand roaming about his body: it grazes his shoulder, index finger tracing his collarbone. Her open palm rests on his beating heart, gauging its rhythm. Her hand now trails down his sternum, across his stomach, tapping, brushing, scratching gently. He lies, unmoving, transfixed by her touch.
“You’re so slight and smooth and fair.”
The way she says it makes him feel admired, cherished. It wipes the smear of the madhouse he was confined to. Her thumb dips into his underwear and his breath catches. His awareness is split in two: the present moment, when she circles the exact same spot on his hip with her thumb, and that night in her living room, when she left the mark she now strokes.
He sees his existence from that point onward as a fractured timeline: all the things that were, all the things that weren’t, all the things that could have been. He feels himself breaking, shattering like a glass figurine dropped on the floor. The Batman’s betrayal, Arkham, The Great Flood. He grabs her and pushes her impossibly close, a strangled moan tearing his throat. No, it’s now a scream, rumbling against her chest, splintering his vocal cords. He’s sobbing, her skin is wet and salty where his face is pressed; he sheds tears he then tastes with his open mouth.
She holds him, fingertips grazing his trembling ribcage, leg curled around his thigh, heel digging into his calf. Every point of contact is both flame and soothing ointment. Warm fingers push away his hair, wiping the sweat on his forehead. She is full to the brim of reassuring touches and he will greedily devour each one, like the animal he is perceived as, like the starving stray he is.
Time loses its forward march and it’s compressed into this single instant when the choices he made and the choices he could have made converge and brought him here, to this bedroom, to this bed, to her, to her open arms and her encompassing warmth.
At one point, when he is spent, body lax against hers, she throws the covers over them. He tucks his hand under her shirt and strokes her waist, focusing on a small patch right below her breast. They lie beneath the covers, breaths mingling, skin hot and supple.
“Sleep,” she commands. Their roles have reversed, and the thought makes him smirk before he falls into a pitch-black slumber.